;vrv7 



^H 



HSBflHSSoeSaS 

IBnuaHMEjlfivfiBBS 



;<•> .<-.>> 









I 




r.;'".v;?i:^:v>: 




■ ^H 








• -,v« -.■*.'. 




^H 


i'.v 


■^^^H 




■ 


B8S 


1 


.' ; *. : i 



■ 

H ||§|g 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



..... Copyright No... 
Shelfj_C__7__„. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



DR. COOKE'S WORKS. 



DOCTRINE OF THE RESURRECTION. 
Historical, Biblical, and Scientific. 

REASONS FOR CHURCH CREED. 

A Contribution to Present-Day Controversies. 

CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD; 

Or, The Relation of Children to the Church. 



THE 



HISTORIC EPISCOPATE 



A STUDY OF 



ANGLICAN CLAIMS AND METHODIST ORDERS 



f BY 

R. J. COOKE, D.D. 

Professor of Exegetical and Historical Theology 





w\%Ua-%-^ 



NEWYORK: EATON & MAINS 

CINCINNATI : CURTS & JENNINGS 

1893 



■ C 7 



Copyright by 

EATON & MAINS, 

1896. 



UIBRARY 

ox Congress 




Eaton & Mains Press, 
150 Fifth Avenue, New York. 



TO THE 

REV. BISHOP ISAAC W. JOYCE, D.D., LL.D., 
Whose love for historical studies 

and sound learning is equaled only by his apostolic zeal in 
caring for the flock of Christ, and whose broad sympathies 
for all forces that make for righteousness among men is an 
inspiring example to all who would seek the unity of the 
Spirit in the bonds of peace, 

THIS VOLUME 

is respectfully inscribed. 



PREFACE. 



AN historical paper by the writer in the Methodist 
Review resulted, to his surprise, in a request 
from eminent quarters that in view of the more 
than academic interest awakened in the doctrine of 
the historic episcopate a volume might be prepared 
on that particular branch of the general subject 
treated of in the article mentioned. The following 
pages are a response to that desire. The difficulty 
of writing a book on this important theme in such 
manner that it shall be acceptable to all classes will 
be appreciated perhaps by those who are acquainted 
with the vast extent of ground to be gone over, 
and the many problems which perplex the candid 
historian ; and yet we may truly say that no pains 
have been spared to meet the requirements of the 
general reader, and, in some degree, the more exact- 
ing demands of the critical student. 

In that part treating of Methodist orders we 
have confined ourselves wholly to that phase of the 
subject on which special emphasis is placed by 
Anglicans, purposely refraining from extended dis- 
cussion of some questions regarded as debatable 
among us, and for the adequate treatment of which 
the future may grant both facilities and time. 



8 PREFACE. 

It would have been much easier to have written 
a larger work. And it would have been an easy 
matter to have increased the size of the present 
volume by inserting transcripts of important docu- 
ments and records relating to events in the Eliza- 
bethan period of the Reformation in England re- 
ferred to in these pages ; but condensation to the 
utmost limit was required, and the results of pro- 
longed research have sometimes been compressed 
into a few lines or within the limits of a single 
page. 

The literature on the subject is voluminous, and 
much assistance is given the student to know the 
best. Anglican critics no doubt will object to some 
authorities on whom we rely ; but if at any time we 
have gone down to Ashdod to sharpen our spears 
among the Philistines, it is in order that we might 
the more effectually cope with those who are fight- 
ing the battles of the Philistines. There is no reason 
why we should discard a fact because it is found in 
Lingard, Raynal, or Estcourt, and not in Burnet, 
Haddan, Bailey, or Bramhall. What we seek is the 
truth, and while our critics may doubtless wish that 
we had limited our researches to a certain class of 
writers, it has pleased us in our search for the whole 
truth to follow our own judgment in pursuit of the 
same. We have not followed any authority blindly, 
however. Whenever it was possible for us, with the 
facilities at hand, we have carefully examined im- 



PREFACE. 9 

portant data and compared various views before 
reaching a conclusion. 

Historic truth is not obtained by a bare recital of 
isolated facts, however true they may be as actual 
events. They must be studied in their historic 
setting, in the atmosphere they have created or in 
which they are found, and he only who can abandon 
himself in spirit to the age or to the movements of 
which he writes, without losing the vantage ground 
of his own time, can be truly regarded as having 
apprehended the truth of history. This principle 
has determined us in our study of the subject be- 
fore us, and has guided us in the interpretation of 
the events with which we have had to deal. 

The purpose of the volume is not to dim the 
glory of any Church. Its real object, no matter 
what its apparent aim may seem to be, is to defend 
the principles of the Reformation relative to Church 
government, to lay bare the grounds of Anglican 
claims to an historic episcopate, to set in clear light 
once more the validity of Methodist orders, and 
thus by breaking down some middle walls of parti- 
tion to contribute something to the tendency to- 
ward unity and peace in the Church of Jesus Christ. 

That it may accomplish this, its true purpose, is 

the earnest prayer of the author. 

R. J. C. 

School of Theology, Chattanooga, 
April, 1896. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. Page 

General Survey 13 

CHAPTER II. 
Consecration of Matthew Parker 22 

CHAPTER III. 
Founders of the Hierarchy 53 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Doctrine of Orders in the Anglican Ordinal 70 

CHAPTER V. 
Teachings of the Reformers 88 

CHAPTER VI. 
Historic Episcopate in the Church of England a Nullity. 107 

CHAPTER VII. 
Methodist Orders — Outline Statement 129 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Ordination of Wesley by a Greek Bishop 139 



12 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IX. Page 

Episcopal Ordination of Dr. Coke 1 56 

CHAPTER X. 
The Authority of Wesley 181 

CHAPTER XI. 
Doctrine of Necessity — Power of the Church 203 



THE 

Historic Episcopate. 



CHAPTER I. 
General Survey* 

ISOLATED from the Greek and Latin commun- 
ions by insurmountable barriers, and maintaining 
a rigid exclusiveness toward Protestant Churches, 
the Established Church of England and its offshoot, 
the Protestant Episcopal Church, hold a position 
among the Churches of Christendom which is as 
unique as it is untenable. The Anglican Church, 
in which term, for convenience, we include the 
Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal 
Church, acknowledges the claims of the Roman and 
Greek Churches to apostolical succession and the 
validity of the sacerdotal character of their min- 
istry. But neither of these communions, in return, 
recognizes in any degree Anglican claims to the 
succession, or regards as valid its ministerial orders. 
These orders are rejected by those Churches as 

spurious, as defective both in matter and in form, 

2 



14 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

and the Church itself as being without mission or 
jurisdiction. 1 

The relation which the Greek and the Latin 
Churches maintain on theological and canonical 
grounds toward the Anglican communion that 
Church, singularly enough, now holds toward all 
the Churches of the Reformation. Protestant 
Churches generally admit, on evangelical principles, 
the sacred character of Anglican orders, without 
assenting, however, to the unhistorical dogma of 
apostolical succession or to the assumptions to a 
priestly character of the Anglican ministry. But 
the -Anglican Church rejects the orders of all other 
Protestant Churches, whether in England, in Hol- 
land, in Sweden, in Germany, or in this country, 
and, forgetting its origin, sets up for itself the ex- 
clusive claim, as against them, of being the one true 
Church of God — as alone possessing a valid minis- 
try, and, therefore, as having the sole divine right to 
administer the Christian sacraments according to 
Christ's holy commandment. 3 

1 This was the decree (April, 1704) of Clement XI in the case of 
the Anglican Bishop Gordon, who submitted to Rome. Haddan, re- 
ferring to this instance, says : "Analogous, but in large part not iden- 
tical, difficulties hinder the recognition of our orders by the Eastern 
Church." — Apostolic Succession in the Church of England, p. 28. 

2 Bishop of Exeter, Second Triennial Charge, 1836, p. 44 ; Bishop 
Beveridge, Works, vol. ii, 106, 147, 148, 165, 257 ; Saravia, Treatise 
of the Different Degrees of the Christian Priesthood, Oxford, pp. 20, 
21 ; Hows, Vindication of the Protestant Episcopal Church, p. 39 ; 
Palmer, On the Church. 



GENERAL SURVEY. I 5 

To the student of history it will appear passing 
strange that any Protestant Church should arrogate 
to itself such an indefensible distinction. Never- 
theless, to the prejudice of other Churches and to 
the great injury of evangelical truth and Christian 
charity, this doctrine has recently been reaffirmed 
with all the solemnity that official sanction could 
give. 

In 1886 the House of Bishops of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church laid down four principles as a 
condition of union with other Protestant Churches. 
The Lambeth Conference of English bishops 
adopted, two years later, similar conditions. The 
fourth principle or condition of union adopted by 
both houses was the acceptance of the historic 
episcopate, by which was signified a recognition 
of the absolute necessity of lawfully derived 
episcopal ordination to the validity of ministerial 
functions in the Christian Church. Without this 
ordination there can be no true ministry, and, by 
consequence, no true Church ; for where there is 
no true ministry there are no true sacraments, 
and a Church without sacraments is no Church. 
Now, acceptance of this dogma .of the historic 
episcopate, which is but another phrase for apos- 
tolical succession, involves belief in many dec- 
larations which are both unscriptural and unhis- 
torical : 

1. That bishops are by divine right a distinct 



l6 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

order in the Christian ministry, higher than presby- 
ters, and possess powers and authority not belong- 
ing to presbyters as such. 1 

2. That bishops are the successors of the apostles, 
and have as such the sole right to ordain to the 
Christian ministry. 2 

3. That no ministry lacking such ordination is 
valid, and that the ordinances of religion admin- 
istered by anyone not thus ordained are unavailing 
as means of divine grace. 3 

Such are a few of the principles involved in the 
doctrine of the historic episcopate. 

With the dogma of apostolical succession, that 
is, a personal tactual succession, this treatise is not 
directly concerned. A chronological, uninterrupted 
succession in Christendom is no longer worthy of 
the serious consideration of the historian. While it 
may be satisfactorily inferred from the New Testa- 
ment and from early Christian writings that episco- 
pacy, in moderate degree, was the prevailing polity 
in the apostolic age, that there never was a time 
when bishops, overseers, or superintendents were 
not recognized as the chief pastors of the flock of 
Christ, still, the same Scriptures unmistakably teach 
that bishops are not successors of the apostles, 
either in power, in gifts, in grace, or in authority ; 

1 Rose, Commission and Consequent Duties of the Clergy, Appendix, 
pp. 189, 190. 

2 Palmer, Treatise on the Church, vol. i, pp. 142, 143. 

3 Dean Hook, Church Dictionary, art. "Anglo-Catholic Church." 



GENERAL SURVEY. 1 7 

that they are not by divine right a distinct order 
from presbyters, but that, on the contrary, they 
are of the same order (Acts xx, 17, 28; Titus 
i, 7; 1 Peter v, 23); that the qualifications for 
a bishop are identical with those required for a 
presbyter (compare 1 Tim. hi, 2-7, and Titus i, 
6-10) ; that presbyters have the same power and 
authority in ordination as bishops ; and, finally, 
that continuity of apostolic teaching is the only 
true and apostolic succession. 

This was also the belief of the primitive Church. 
Clement of Rome (A. D. 65) knows nothing of 
three orders in the ministry. With him, as with the 
New Testament writers, bishops and presbyters are 
the same. Writing to the church at Corinth on the 
occasion of a sedition in that church, he says : 

For it would be no small sin in us should we cast off those 
from their episcopate who holily and without blame fulfill the 
duties of it. . . . Blessed are those presbyters who, having fin- 
ished their course before these times, . . . for they have no fear 
lest anyone should turn them out of their place. 

The Didache, containing a summary of apostolic 
teaching, and which is among the earliest documents 
of the Church, like the Epistle of Clement, knows 
only of two orders — bishops, who, of course, were 
presbyters, and deacons. Irenaeus (A. D. 167), speak- 
ing of heretical ministers elated with pride in having 
the principal seat, exhorts the faithful to hold alle- 
giance to those who " keep the doctrine of the apos- 



1 8 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE, 

ties, and with the order of the presbyters— presby- 
terii ordine — exhibit soundness in word. . . . The 
Church cherishes such presbyters, of whom the 
prophet says, 'And I will give thy governors — 
dpxovreg — in peace, and thy bishops — tmoKorrovg— in 
righteousness.'" 1 Jerome, summing up the con- 
clusions from Scripture and the practice of the apos- 
tolic Church, writes : 

A presbyter, therefore, is the same as a bishop ; and before 
dissensions were introduced in religion by the instigation of 
the devil, and it was among the peoples, " I am of Paul, I am 
of Apollos, and I of Cephas," churches were governed by a 
common council of presbyters. . . . But because at that time 
they called the same persons bishops whom they called presby- 
ters, therefore the apostle speaks of bishops as presbyters indif- 
ferently. Should this still seem ambiguous to anyone unless 
verified by another testimony, in the Acts of the Apostles it 
is written — 

He then cites the various well-known passages, and 
from Heb. xii, 17; I Peter v, I, and then continues: 

Therefore, as we have shown, presbyters were the same as 
bishops ; but by degrees, that the plants of dissension might 
be rooted up, all responsibility was transferred to one person. 
Therefore, as the presbyters know that it is by the custom of 
the Church that they are to be subject to him who is placed 
over them, so let the bishops know that they are above pres- 
byters rather by custom than by divine appointment. 

But, notwithstanding the demonstrable fact that 
apostolical succession can never be proved either 
from Scripture or from history, 2 we may grant the 

1 Adversus H^reses, c. xliv. 

- Referring to this want of historic truth, Perceval, Apostolic Sue- 



GENERAL SURVEY. I 9 

supposition of it for the time being in order more 
clearly to elucidate the truth. Let it be conceded 
that there has come down from the apostles an 
unbroken succession of bishops, and that that suc- 
cession continues and is in force at present. Let it 
be granted, further, that the Roman and the Greek 
Churches are in possession, as Anglicans assert, of 
this succession. The questions before us, then, are, 
Does the Church of England or the Protestant 
Episcopal Church possess this same succession ? 
Have these Churches, tried by the principles they 
lay down for other Churches, a truly valid ministry? 
Now, since the Church of England and the Prot- 
estant Episcopal Church, by insisting upon this 
theory of succession, which by them has been made 
an article of belief equal to a revealed doctrine, 
reject the validity of ordination in other Protes- 
tant Churches, the right to challenge, on these same 
Anglican principles, the validity of orders in the 
Established Church and its American offshoot can 
neither be questioned nor denied. These Churches 
possess no character or authority which would en- 
title them to exemption from trial on their own 

cession, p. 17, says : " If nothing will satisfy men but actual demon- 
stration I yield at once." Riddle, Christian Antiquities, Preface : 
"Whatever may become of apostolic succession as a theory or an 
institute, it is impossible to prove the fact of such succession." And 
again in his Plea for Episcopacy : " It is impossible to prove the 
personal succession of modern bishops, in an unbroken episcopal line, 
from the apostles or men of the apostolic age." See also Keble on 
Tradition, p. 96. 



20 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

principles. It cannot be quietly assumed that the 
Church of England is undoubtedly founded on an 
historic, legitimate episcopate, and that therefore it 
possesses the right to lay down imperative con- 
ditions for other Churches. Before it or the Protes- 
tant Episcopal Church can lawfully presume to do 
this it must produce its own undoubted credentials, 
and must make good, without any element of incer- 
titude in its evidence, its own high claims to author- 
ized succession. 

Upon what, then, does this claim to the historic 
episcopate in the Church of England rest ? As an 
historic fact it rests solely on the validity and sacra- 
mental character of Matthew Parker's consecration 
to the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury. He is the 
head of the stream. From him the English episco- 
pate is derived. He, and he only, is the foundation 
of the English hierarchy ; and, unless it can be 
demonstrated, as it has not been and, as we think, 
never can be, without any suspicion of doubt that 
he was truly and canonically ordained, then, on 
Anglican principles, this historic episcopate in the 
Church of England is a usurped claim, a pretension 
engendered of ecclesiastical pride, or an unfortunate 
alternative, which has proved a girdle of Ate, forced 
upon that Church by religious and political circum- 
stances ; and the claim of the Church of England is 
false, however agreeable that claim may be to the 
dignity and to the illustrious history of that vener- 



GENERAL SURVEY. 2 1 

able Church. Its orders, on the same principles, like 
those of other Churches, are null and void. Once 
the issue is made nothing can be taken for granted. 
Historic facts alone will suffice. Assumptions 
of what might have been or what, judging from 
circumstances, must have been done will be of 
no avail. The undoubted historic facts alone will 
be admitted in evidence. In no instance will any 
degree of rational doubt be allowed, nor should An- 
glicans who sit in judgment on the orders of other 
Churches desire it ; for, if in the evidence there is 
reasonable ground for doubt, then, on the universal 
legal maxim, "Nemo dat quod 11011 habet" the valid- 
ity of all subsequent ordinations emanating from that 
source would also be doubtful. Such uncertainty 
would be death to the historic episcopate and an- 
nihilation to the affirmations and demands of An- 
glican prelates. 

It is our purpose, then, to show: I. That the fact 
of Matthew Parker's consecration is at least doubt- 
ful ; 2. That if he was consecrated the consecration, 
on Anglican principles, was invalid ; 3. That if valid 
it did not continue the apostolical succession ; 4. 
That the Church of England, when established by 
law in the Reformation, utterly rejected the theories 
and principles now maintained by High Church 
teachers as the original doctrines of the Church of 
England. 



22 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 



CHAPTER II. 
Consecration of Matthew Parker. 

WHEN the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of 
Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, ascended the 
throne of England, in 1558, the Roman Catholic 
faith was the established religion of the nation. It 
was a period of convulsion and of change. Whether 
the Reformation, which had been inaugurated under 
Henry, continued with varying success under Ed- 
ward VI, but was suddenly arrested by the hand of 
Mary, would again revive in the new reign was a 
State problem, as well as a religious question. Eliz- 
abeth, however, was considered as favorable to Re- 
form, and in her the hopes of the Protestants were 
centered. As Froude points out, three fourths 
of the people of England, a third of the privy coun- 
cil, and a large majority of the lay peers were op- 
posed to a change of religion ; but the terrible per- 
secutions under Queen Mary, during which Bishops 
Hooper, Ferrar, Latimer, Ridley, and Archbishop 
Cranmer were brought to the stake, had produced 
generally a decided reaction from the popular en- 
thusiasm which had placed Mary on the throne and 
had thereby restored the Catholic teaching. The 
influence, also, of a powerful minority at court was 



CONSECRATION OF MATTHEW PARKER. 23 

on the side of the Reformed doctrines. Such min- 
isters as had preached the pure word of God, had 
zealously advocated the principles of the Reforma- 
tion under Edward VI, and had fled the kingdom 
when Mary became queen, were now returning from 
Strasburg, Zurich, and Geneva, and were beginning 
anew without hindrance the work of reform. 

But England was still legally Catholic. All laws 
of the realm which had been enacted in the preced- 
ing reign for the protection or enrichment of the 
Roman Church were still in force. Catholic bishops 
occupied the sees ; not one Protestant bishop was 
in possession of a diocese ; Elizabeth was crowned 
by a Roman bishop; the Roman missal was used 
in public worship, and in all respects the religious 
character of the nation appeared unchanged. Eliza- 
beth herself was in reality but little inclined to the 
doctrines of the Reformation. Possessing an elastic 
conscience, which enabled her to adjust herself with 
facility to the varying exigencies of the situation, 
she had no desire to radically change the religion of 
her subjects, whatever may have been her purpose 
to alter the form of it or to employ its power and 
prestige in behalf of the crown, at home or abroad. 1 
She believed in the real presence, 2 which at that 

1 Strype, Annals of the Ref or/nation, vol. i, part i, 59, 74, 77 ; Bur- 
net, History of the Reformation, i, 585 ; Collier, Ecclesiastical His- 
tory, vi, 200 ; Froude, History of England ; Green, Short History 
of the English People. 

2 Slrype, Annals, vol. i, part i, 2, 3. 



24 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

time signified transubstantiation ; retained the cru- 
cifix and lighted candles on the altar in the royat 
chapel; 1 denounced marriage of the clergy; 2 and 
threatened to issue injunctions in favor of the Roman 
Church. 3 Before the prayer book which was to take 
the place of the liturgy in use under Mary was pre- 
sented to Parliament for adoption, Elizabeth made 
changes in it which brought it so near to the Roman 
missal that the pope agreed to ratify its use in Eng- 
land should his supremacy be acknowledged. 4 She 
insisted that ministers officiating at the eucharist 
should be clothed with vestments worn by Catholic 
priests in the celebration of the mass, and that the 
bread used in the sacrament should be in the form 
of the wafer. 5 The queen at the beginning of her 
reign was evidently desirous, like her father Henry, 
that with the exception of papal supremacy the 
old religion, with its magnificent ritual and splendor 
of ceremony, should remain, as it was, the religion of 
her kingdom. 

The chiefs of the Reformed party, however, were 

1 "The queen, still to this year [1565], kept the crucifix in her 
chapel." — Strype, Annals, vol. i, part ii, 198-200. 
2 Strype, Annals, vol. i, part i, 118. 

3 Strype, Life of Parker, i, 217, 218. There was some fear that 
she would abandon Protestantism altogether. See Burnet, Records, 
17, in Appendix to Strype's Parker. 

4 Strype, Annals, vol. i, part i, 340 ; Burnet, History of the Refor- 
mation, ii, 645 ; Collier, Ecclesiastical History, vi, 308, 309. 

5 Cardwell, History of Conferences; Short, History of the Church 
of England, 537-549 ; Collier, Ecclesiastical JILtory, vi, 248, 250. 



CONSECRATION OF MATTHEW PARKER. 25 

of another mind. They were determined that the 
Reformation should triumph. The Word of God 
should be free in England. Evils indeed had fol- 
lowed in the wake of Reform ; nobles had espoused 
its cause that they might enrich themselves with 
the spoils of the Church ; the populace, in the first 
flush of freedom from superstition, had plunged into 
immoral excesses ; there was a restlessness abroad 
that endangered the stability of the State ; but these 
misfortunes, incident to great changes, would be 
remedied if the authority of the crown should be 
thrown on the side of pure religion. On the other 
hand, the Church of Rome was Antichrist, and 
should receive no support from a Christian State ; 
the doctrine of the mass was a horrid blasphemy ; 
the worship of saints, of relics, and the adornment 
of churches with images and pictures were gross 
superstition ; all popish rites and ceremonies and use 
of vestments — " Aaronic ornaments " — all crosses 
and altars and obeisances, and the employment of 
dead tongues — mere mumblings of the Amorites — 
were wholly alien both to the spirit and to the 
letter of the Gospel. There could come no peace 
to the nation till idolatry was put out of the land. 

Thus the distinction between the Reformed doc- 
trine and the Catholic teaching was, not merely a 
variation of forms or a question of authority, but 
a radical difference of religion. The Christianity 
accepted and revered by the Romanist was altogether 



26 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

another system from that which was apprehended 
by the Puritan reformer. 

Religious questions were national interests, and 
the antagonism of Rome to the person and policy 
of the queen made a change in the religious char- 
acter of the kingdom a political necessity. Parlia- 
ment assembled ; bills were presented ; and the 
building of the temple of the Reformers was again re- 
sumed. By repealing the ecclesiastical laws which 
had restored the Catholic faith in the reign of Queen 
Mary, and by reviving certain acts of Henry VIII 
and Edward VI, the Reformed doctrine was legally 
established in the place of the Roman faith as the 
religion of the nation. Elizabeth was made su- 
preme head of the Church in England. The word- 
ing of the Act of Supremacy is of particular impor- 
tance. Parliament declared : 

Such jurisdictions, privileges, superiorities, and preemi- 
nences, spiritual and ecclesiastical, as by any spiritual or eccle- 
siastical power or authority have heretofore been, or may law- 
fully be, exercised or used for the visitation of the ecclesiastical 
state and persons, and for reformation, order, and correction 
of the same, and of all manner of errors, heresies, schisms, 
abuses, offenses, contempts, and enormities, shall forever, by 
the authority of the present Parliament, be united and annexed 
to the imperial crown of the realm. 

A clause in the same act granted authority to 
the crown to delegate the powers above mentioned 
to persons, lay or clerical, who should act as com- 
missioners to order, restrain, or amend anything 
in the Church " which, by any manner of spiritual 



CONSECRATION OF MATTHEW PARKER. 27 

or ecclesiastical power, authority, or jurisdiction, 
can or may lawfully be reformed, ordered, redressed, 
corrected, restrained, or amended." By this act 
not only was the entire discipline of the Church 
placed in the power of the crown, but even laymen, 
who may or may not be Christians at all, might 
exercise decisive authority in all ecclesiastical affairs 
over the ministers of religion. Further, by the Act 
of Uniformity it was made a statutory law " that 
the queen's majesty, by the advice of her ecclesias- 
tical commissioners, may ordain and publish such 
ceremonies or rites as may be most for the advance- 
ment of God's glory and the edifying of the Church/' 
Strype 1 also says that in this first Parliament a bill 
passed the House of Commons empowering the 
queen to collate or appoint bishops to vacant 
bishoprics, without rites or ceremonies. The pow r er 
to do this, however, was already involved in the Act 
of Supremacy. 

Thus all spiritual jurisdiction, the supreme 
power of guiding and governing the Church of 
God, was placed in the hands of Elizabeth. The 
ministers of religion, even in the exercise of 
their calling, were mere officials, mere servants 
of the crown, which could prescribe the forms 
of prayer, ordain the character of rites and cere- 
monies, and with a word make or unmake these 
ministers at will. 

1 Annals^ p. 67. 



28 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

The plea made by Haddan and others, that Eliz- 
abeth and her Parliament were not sources of au- 
thority for the Church, but that they only gave the 
sanction of civil law to its decrees and ritual regu- 
lations, by which plea Anglicans hope to remove 
certain difficulties from their claim to the historic 
episcopate, was long ago made by Bishop Burnet in 
his Vindication of English Ordinations. In that book 
he cites in justification the interference in Church 
affairs of the emperors Constantine, Theodosius, 
and Charles the Great. But he was careful, as re- 
cent Anglican writers are also careful, to avoid the 
rock upon which this plea is wrecked — the fact that 
neither these emperors, nor any ruler after them, 
ever arrogated to themselves supremacy in the 
Church, or exercised any authority in matters of 
religion or any jurisdiction over bishops or minis- 
ters as supreme heads of the Church, such a head 
as Elizabeth, by enactment of Parliament, was con- 
stituted to be, and in which capacity exercised su- 
preme authority over the Church of England. 

Elizabeth understood full well the scope and pur- 
pose of her authority. 1 When the Bishop of Ely 
(Cox) refused at the command of the queen to 
alienate certain lands and manors of his see, she 



1 Cardwell, Documentary Annals, ii, 171 ; Strype, Life of Grin- 
dal, 290 ; Lamb, Historical Account of the Thirty-Nine Articles ; 
Cardwell, History of Conferences, 21, 22, note. 

2 Strickland, Queens of England, i, 234. 



CONSECRATION OF MATTHEW PARKER. 29 

Proud Prelate : You know what you were before I made 
you what you are. If you do not immediately comply with my 
request, by G — d I will unfrock you. Elizabeth. 

In her speech to Parliament, 1584, her majesty 
informed the bishops that if they did not amend 
their ways she would depose every one of them. 
" For there seems to have been," says Hallam, " no 
question in that age but that this might be done by 
virtue of the crown's supremacy." Prior to this, 
when the Elizabethan Articles of Religion were sent 
up for ratification to the House of Lords they were 
"stayed by commandment from the queen," for the 
reason that she, and not Parliament, was the head 
of the Church, and that that method of putting forth 
the book was an invasion of her prerogative. The 
primate and bishops petitioned her, says Hardwick, 
to accelerate the passage of the bill authorizing the 
publication of the Articles through the House ; but 
their petition was of no avail, " for the queen, im- 
movably resolved to gain what she .considered her 
prerogative, cut short all further ' doings of the Com- 
mons ' by dissolving Parliament." 

The Act of Supremacy also provided that all per- 
sons holding office under the crown, civil, military, 
or ecclesiastical, should take an oath acknowledging 
the royal supremacy. By this requirement every 
bond between the Roman Church and the Reformed 
Church was broken. The hierarchy, which Anglicans 

affirm had undoubted succession, was destroyed. In 
3 



30 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE, 

the whole kingdom there were twenty-four episcopal 
and two archiepiscopal sees. The sees of nine bishops 
and of one archbishop were vacant. In July, 1559, 
the remaining bishops and archbishops were sum- 
moned by the lords of council and ordered to take 
the oath; but, with the exception of Kitchin, Bishop 
of Llandaff, they all refused, and by the end of 
September they were all deprived of their sees by 
High Court of Commission. 1 In this manner the 
Roman sees were emptied of their bishops — a mode 
quite as legal as that by which the bishops of Ed- 
ward VI had been deprived in the preceding reign — 
and there now remained in all England no bishop, 
except Kitchin, who might lawfully exercise the 
functions of his office or who could with any assur- 
ance transmit the succession. 

The archiepiscopal see of Canterbury, the high- 
est in England, being vacant by the death of Car- 
dinal Pole, it was of prime importance that it 
should be filled as soon as possible by one in 
harmony with the new order of things in Church 
and State. For this purpose Queen Elizabeth, 
according to her royal prerogative, issued a man- 
date, September 9, 1559, to four of the Roman 
Catholic bishops, Tonstal of Durham, Bourne of 
Bath and Wells, Poole of Peterborough, and Kitchin 
of Llandaff, and to Doctors in Divinity Barlow and 

1 Hallam, Constitutional History of England, p. 73 ; Heylin, 
History of the Reformation. 



CONSECRATION OF MATTHEW PARKER. 3 1 

Scory, who had been ejected from their sees in 
Mary's reign, commanding them to consecrate Mat- 
thew Parker, who was a professor of sacred the- 
ology, Archbishop of Canterbury. The Roman 
bishops refused to obey the mandate. They recog- 
nized neither the spiritual authority of the queen 
nor the episcopal character of Barlow and Scory. 
The attempt to link by royal authority the new 
hierarchy on to the old proved an embarrassing 
failure. But the failure to establish with becoming 
dignity some sort of a hierarchy was not the worst 
evil, if evil it was, that shadowed the doubtful 
birth of that episcopal system which, forgetting its 
plebeian origin, began in the next reign to assert for 
itself a divine parentage. By separating from the 
ancient Church — the treasury of mystical grace — 
apostolical succession, if there was ever such a thing 
in the universe, was now made impossible to the 
newborn Church established by act of Parliament. 
For, although the newly constituted Church might 
have consecrated ministers and bishops, yet these 
servants of the crown could not, on modern Anglican 
principles, be in possession of the succession, since 
they had severed themselves in matters of faith and 
practice from that Church which had given them 
authority and in which they acknowledged the grace 
and fact of apostolical succession alone to reside. 
Otherwise, the Arian, Donatist, and Eutychian 
bishops, validly ordained, but all rejected as 



32 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

heretical, would also be in the succession — an absurd 

doctrine, rejected alike by Romanist and Anglican. 1 

The failure of this commission 2 resulted in the 

issuance of another mandate, dated December 6, 

1559: 

Elizabeth, by the grace of God, of England, France, and 
Ireland queen, defender of the faith, etc., to the Reverend 
Fathers in Christ, Anthony, Bishop of Llandaff, William Bar- 
low, sometime Bishop of Bath, now elect of Chichester, John 
Scoiy, sometime Bishop of Chichester, now elect of Hereford, 
Miles Coverdale, sometime Bishop of Exeter, John, Suffragan 
of Bedford, John, Suffragan of Thetford, John Bale, Bishop of 
Ossory, [commanding them to consecrate Matthew Parker 
Archbishop of Canterbury] according to the form of the stat- 
utes in this behalf set forth and provided ; supplying, never- 
theless, by our supreme royal authority, of our mere motion 
and certain knowledge, whatever (either in the things to be 
done by you pursuant to our aforesaid mandate, or in you, or 
any of you, your condition, state, or power for the performance 
of the premises) may or shall be wanting of those things which, 
either by the statutes of this realm or by the ecclesiastical laws, 
are required or are necessary on this behalf, the state of the 
times and the exigency of affairs rendering it necessary. 

In obedience to this mandate Matthew Parker, 
it is said, was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury 
in the chapel at Lambeth House, December 17, 

1 See Augustine, De Dessidio Donatistarum ; Tertullian, De 
Prcescriptione Hcereticorum, c. xx, xxi, xii, xxvi. 

2 Before this mandate was issued there was no little embarrassment 
how to proceed. Among the State papers of the time is a letter from 
Parker to Cecil, Elizabeth's secretary, on the margin of which Cecil 
made some notes. One refei's to Edward's Ordinal ; and Cecil writes, 
" This is not established by Parliament." The other relates to the 
consecration. Cecil notes, " There is no archbishop nor III bishops 
now to be had ; wherefore quarendum." 



CONSECRATION OF MATTHEW PARKER. 33 

1559, by the persons named, except Kitchin, Bishop 
of LlandafF, Bale, and the Suffragan of Thetford. 

Such were the events leading up to, and such were 
the means by which, the Anglican hierarchy was es- 
tablished. It originated as we see in the civil power, 
and on that power was and is dependent for its 
continuance. " It drew its life from Elizabeth's 
throne," says the historian Froude, " and had Eliza- 
beth fallen it would have crumbled into sand. . . . 
The image in its outward aspect could be made to 
correspond with the parent tree ; and to sustain 
the illusion it was necessary to provide bishops who 
could appear to have inherited their powers by the 
approved method as successors of the apostles." 

We have seen the authority granted the queen as 
head of the Church — how she might rule in every 
affair of the Church directly without intervention 
of Parliament, or indirectly through commissioners 
appointed by herself; how by her mere word she 
could appoint bishops or depose them, and change 
rites and ceremonies, and even the very prayers that 
were offered in divine worship. In view of these 
facts, and considering the religious temper of the 
time and the avowed opinions of the chief con- 
secrator, what undoubted proof is there that Mat- 
thew Parker was truly consecrated Archbishop of 
Canterbury? That some act of importance to the 
Church of England occurred at this time we need not 
doubt ; but was it a consecration, or was it an instal- 



34 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

lation following royal appointment, according to the 
crown's prerogative as head of the Church? Did the 
queen really issue a second mandate? 

Now, it is a matter of history that this consecra- 
tion has been questioned, both as to fact and form, 
by Romanist and Presbyterian, from the time it was 
first heard of to the present day. Neither Mason's 
Vindicice nor Godwin's Prcesulibus, the efforts of 
Bramhall, or the editor of Bramhall, with all his in- 
genuity and learning, has been able to dispel the 
doubts which first clouded the announcement of the 
event. The Presbyterians contended that the bish- 
ops consecrated by Parker were not true bishops, 
since he himself was not, and that if such bishops 
had seats in Parliament they also were entitled to 
the same. Again, among the official documents 
between the date of Parker's election by the chapter 
of Canterbury — which was not a true election — Au- 
gust I, 1559, and the date given for his consecration, 
December 17, 1559, there is much confusion and 
contradiction. While only archbishop elect, Parker 
himself, in a letter to the council, styles himself 
archbishop, as if his nomination by the queen in the 
conge d'e'lire to the chapter and his subsequent 
election were sufficient. The letters patent, dated 
December 6, 1559, and which have neither seal nor 
signature, simply authorize his consecration. But 
in a royal commission signed by the queen herself 
— per ipsam reginam — dated October 20, 1559, nearly 



CONSECRATION OF MATTHEW PARKER. 35 

two months before he was consecrated, the queen 
addresses him as Archbishop of Canterbury, and this 
in a legal document granting him certain powers 
belonging to his office. 

What proof is there, then, that Matthew Parker 
was not archbishop solely by appointment of the 
queen? Where is the proof in which there is no 
room for reasonable doubt that he was truly con- 
secrated? To one who adopts the principles of the 
High Church party, in order to show that these 
principles are suicidal when applied to the genuine- 
ness of their own ministerial orders, it makes little 
difference whether the fact of Parker's consecration 
can be proved or not ; but to those who really be- 
lieve the Anglican theory of succession, indubitable 
proof of the fact is a matter of life or death. Valid 
ordination and apostolical succession are two things, 
separate and distinct. The first is no absolute guar- 
antee for the second. Not only must the fact of con- 
secration be undoubtedly established, but it must 
also be shown that those who consecrated Parker had 
the authority to consecrate, and also that in contin- 
uing the succession they continued it according to 
the intention and theological teaching of the source 
whence they received it ; otherwise, that which they 
transmitted, supposingthat anythingwas transmitted 
at all, was not that which they had received or was in- 
tended to be conveyed, but something wholly differ- 
ent, and the succession in theircase wascertainlylost. 



36 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

The first evidence offered in proof of Matthew 
Parker's consecration is the Lambeth register con- 
taining the record of the fact. This record, says 
Haddan, " occupies from the second to the eleventh 
leaf of Parker's register, vol. i. The volume is an 
entire volume, bound together before it was used ; 
not a collection of separate documents bound to- 
gether after they were written." It is, therefore, 
either the original book in which were recorded the 
facts related to the consecration at the time they 
transpired, or it is a book in which were copied the 
record of the facts from original documents. That 
it is not a book of copies, but the original record it- 
self, is clearly the fact that Haddan is desirous of 
proving. That there can be no doubt of this is evi- 
dent from the statement by Archbishop Wake to 
Le Courayer : 

You may depend upon it that the whole entry of the acts of 
M. Parker's consecration, with all the instruments relating to 
it, in my registers are written in the same hand with the other 
acts of what passed during his archiepiscopate, and all at the 
same time they were done. 

But what proof is there that this register is itself 
genuine? Has it been subjected to the test of 
those principles of literary and historical criticism 
which, for instance, are applied so rigorously to the 
New Testament manuscripts and the documents of 
early Christianity — the epistles of Ignatius, for ex- 
ample? Forgery, it is a well-known fact, was com- 
mon in the days of Elizabeth ; and in the reign 



CONSECRATION OF MATTHEW PARKER. 37 

of James I a general pardon was once granted to 
those who had forged State papers, charters, deeds, 
etc. Every important document, then, of that pe- 
riod must be accepted with caution by the critic, 
and such a valuable proof as this register is assumed 
to be must have some unassailable verification of 
its genuineness. What is the internal and external 
evidence in its favor ? 

The consecration of Matthew Parker took place, 
it is affirmed, December 17, A. D. 1559. But, not- 
withstanding the fact that the announcement of the 
act was challenged and proofs demanded that the 
act had been performed, this register containing 
the record of the event was not produced till A. D. 
161 3, fifty-four years after the alleged act occurred. 
Among the Romanists, Harding pressed Jewel, one 
of Parker's bishops, to show the credentials of the 
new episcopacy. Others, as Sanders, Bristow, and 
Stapleton, lynx-eyed watchers of everything done 
by the new regime, repeatedly denied the fact of 
the consecration. But no register was ever produced 
to prove it ; for which reason Romanists and Pres- 
byterians declared that the new bishops were bish- 
ops only by appointment of the queen, according 
to the Act 1st Elizabeth, and referred to them com- 
monly as " Parliament bishops." Where was this 
register during these fifty-four years ? Is it a fact 
that it is a contemporaneous record of the event 
upon which the historic episcopate rests? It is 



38 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

something remarkable that neither Haddan nor 
Bailey nor any Anglican writer gives any contem- 
porary evidence of its existence. Stow, the friend 
and protege of Parker, makes no mention of it in 
his chronological history; Godwin's work on An- 
glican prelates, published first in English in 1601, 
knows nothing of it ; in fact, no writer or historian 
of the period mentions it. But in 16 13 Mason, 
chaplain to Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury, pub- 
lished his Vindicice, and then for the first time in 
fifty-four years this precious, all-essential document 
triumphantly saw the light. How could such an 
important volume, by no means small, containing, 
as Haddan says, the record of " the earliest acts of 
jurisdiction dated two and three days after Parker's 
confirmation," drop so completely out of the sight 
and memory of man so soon after the alleged con- 
secration, notwithstanding the numerous records 
that were made and were to be made in it, that it 
could not be appealed to for half a century? 

Again, this register was made known for the 
first time in the reign of James I. It is worthy 
of note that it was. at this time that a general 
pardon was granted to those who had been guilty 
of forging public documents, of erasing or interlin- 
ing rolls, records, briefs, or other documents in that 
reign or in any preceding reign — strong evidence, 
apparently, that public documents had been tam- 
pered with in royal courts and forged by skillful 



CONSECRATION OF MATTHEW PARKER. 39 

hands. In view of this notorious fact the crit- 
ical inquirer would be justified, it would seem, 
in asking how it happened that the register was 
discovered at this particular time, the early part 
of the reign of James I. 

About this time marked changes in political and 
ecclesiastical opinions began to unfold themselves. 
The seed sown in other years began to bear astonish- 
ing fruit. In the early days of the great Elizabeth, 
when England was in her life or death struggle with 
the papacy and all Europe was tossed in the con- 
vulsive throes of religious revolution, Presbyterian 
and Churchman, like true-hearted Englishmen, united 
against the common enemy. The bloody cruelties 
of Mary were still fresh in the mind of the nation ; 
the return of papal power, and with it the destruction 
of the liberties of England, were by no means im- 
probable events; in their theology and views of 
Church government there was on the whole little, 
if any, essential difference between the founders of 
the national Church and the Puritans. Armini- 
anism and Calvinism, Episcopalianism and Presby- 
terianism were not then deep lines of cleavage in 
Church or State, the rallying cries, as they after- 
ward became, of powerful parties struggling for su- 
premacy or toleration. But in the closing days of 
Elizabeth, when England was at comparative peace, 
and the dominion of Rome was no longer a dread, 
there was gradually developed a modification of pre- 



40 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

vious beliefs, a tendency toward readjustment of 
ecclesiastical relations, an assumption on the part of 
the national Church of the principles and peerless 
claims of the discarded Roman supremacy over all 
other religious sects in the kingdom. The sturdy Re- 
formers who had successfully resisted the teachings 
of Rome and had delivered England to the freedom 
of the Gospel were all dead. Their successors leaned 
more to the doctrines and polity of Rome than to 
the teachings and simple rites of Geneva. " In 
their view," says Macaulay, "the episcopal office was 
essential to the welfare of a Christian society and 
to the efficacy of the most solemn ordinances of 
religion. To that office belonged certain high and 
sacred privileges which no human power could give 
or take away. A Church might as well be without 
the doctrine of the Trinity or the doctrine of the 
Incarnation as without episcopal orders ; and the 
Church of Rome, which in the midst of her cor- 
ruptions had retained the apostolical orders, was 
nearer to primitive purity than those Reformed socie- 
ties which had rashly set up in opposition to the di- 
vine model a system invented by men." Such was 
the new attitude of the Established Church toward 
other Churches in the kingdom. 

King James was considered averse to the princi- 
ples of the Reformers and in sympathy with those of 
the Catholics. Before the death of Elizabeth he had 
intrigued with them for their support, and on his ac- 



CONSECRATION OF MATTHEW PARKER. 4 1 

cession to the throne their hopes revived. The king 
himself, with his new doctrine of the divine right 
of kings, asserted the divine right of bishops. " No 
bishop, no king," was often in his mouth, and for the 
tenets of Presbyterianism he manifested undisguised 
hostility. Between Puritanism and prelatism the 
conflict was intense. The Church flattered the mon- 
arch for the support she received, and in her Book 
of Canons buttressed with spiritual authority his pet 
theory of passive obedience. Nevertheless, James's 
study of the fathers and his fond reverence for the 
usages of antiquity had made him as doubtful of 
the legitimacy of English episcopal orders as the 
political situation had increased his prejudice against 
the Puritans. So distrustful was James of these 
orders that it is affirmed that he entered into a secret 
negotiation with the pope and Henry IV of France 
to introduce real bishops into England, who should 
remain concealed until the time was ripe. The plan 
leaked out in London, and James changed his policy. 
Was not the discovery of this register, then, at this 
particular time, in the midst of these events, a very 
providential coincidence ? 

From testimony adduced by the Rev. Mr. Bailey 
it would seem still further that, for the preservation 
of the hierarchy, and the keeping of the Church al- 
lied to the throne and the throne to the Church, 
there was an absolute necessity for the discovery 
of this register or a like document. Mr. Bailey, 



42 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

from his collection of records, quotes testimony to 

the fact that when Sanders's book relating to the 

Nag's Head fable concerning the consecration of 

the Elizabethan bishops came to King James " it 

strattled him :" 

Upon this he [the king") cald his privy council and shewed 
it them, and withal told 'em that he was a stranger among 
'em and knew nothing of the matter; and, directing himself to 
the archbishop [Abbot], who was present, " My Lord (says he), 
I hope you can prove and make good your ordination, for by 
my sol, man (says he), if this story be true we are no Church." 

The archbishop replies that by examining the 
Lambeth register he could produce the record of 
Parker's consecration. Some time afterward the 
document is produced — it could have been shown the 
king the next day, for Mason, the archbishop's chap- 
lain, had already discovered it among some musty 
papers in the Lambeth Library — and the Earl of 
Nottingham, perusing it, declared, " It was ye origi- 
nal he saw and read when Archbishop Parker was 
ordained," fifty-four years before. 

But if this record was so easily found at this 
particular juncture, on the appearance of Sanders's 
book, why was it not produced, in answer to the 
repeated demands of those who denied its ex- 
istence and challenged the validity of the new 
episcopal orders, in the reign of Queen Eliz- 
abeth? Harding, who was contemporary with 
Parker and Barlow and the others, and, like the 
rest of his coreligionists, watchful of every public 



CONSECRATION OF MATTHEW PARKER. 43 

act, challenged Jewel to show the record of the or- 
dination. " We say to you, Mr. Jewel, and to each 
of your companions, ' Show us the register of your 
bishops; show us the letters of your orders.' ... If 
you cannot show your bishoply pedigree, if you can 
prove no succession, then whereby hold you ? How 
can' you prove your vocation? By what authority 
usurp you the administration of doctrine and sacra- 
ments ? Who hath called you ? Who hath laid 
hands on you ? How and by whom were you con- 
secrated ? " But no register, no pedigree, was ever 
forthcoming. Bishop Jewel returned an evasive 
answer. Not until fifty-four years after the event, 
when all who participated in it and all who wit- 
nessed it were dead except the earl of prodigious 
memory, was the register produced, and then at a 
time most providential for the continuity of the hier- 
archy established by law. 

An examination of the register furnishes internal 
evidence, it is said by those contesting it, sufficient 
to awaken doubt of its authenticity. It mentions 
Parker's family as being among the aristocracy. A 
life of Parker, translated from the Historiola of the 
Masters of Corpus Christi College and published 
during Parkers lifetime (1574) by one who knew 
him, states that he was the son of an honest weaver 
at Norwich. It also affirms that at the consecration 
the Ordinal of Edward VI was used, which Ordinal 
at that time was illegal, it not having been restored. 



44 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

Elizabeth certainly expected that the Roman ritual 
would be employed in the service, for it cannot be 
supposed that she thought the Roman bishops to 
whom she sent her first mandate would use any 
other. Between the date of that mandate and the 
date of the consecration no act of Parliament was 
passed legally restoring the Ordinal which had been 
outlawed in the preceding reign. 

Now, this Ordinal supposes only one consecrator; 
but the register mentions four. This leads Haddan 
to remark in a note that " no distinction is made 
between the presiding bishop and the assistant bish- 
ops in this case." But why should these consecra- 
tors depart from the Ordinal which they assumed 
to follow ? Is there any attempt here to supply 
the deficiency in Parker's consecration by making 
it appear that Barlow was not the only conse- 
crator ? 

The statement of Haddan that u the volume is an 
entire volume, bound together before it was used, 
not a collection of separate documents bound to- 
gether after they were written," is doubtless designed 
to suggest the absurdity that such a volume could 
be forged. Indeed, this defender of Anglican orders 
is so infallibly certain that forgery was impossible 
in this instance that one marvels that Queen Eliza- 
beth, or King James, should ever have issued par- 
dons to persons of quality guilty of forging State 
papers, interlining or erasing rolls, charters, etc., 



CONSECRATION OF MATTHEW PARKER. 45 

access to which in State archives was no doubt as 
difficult as was access to ecclesiastical registers in 
episcopal houses. 

But if this document is not spurious it bears upon 
its face the most unfortunate marks of guilt of any 
document ever depended upon for the support of a 
great cause. Archbishop Wake, it will be remem- 
bered, assured Le Courayer, who was writing in de- 
fense of English orders, that everything relating to 
Parker's consecration in the registers was " written 
in the same hand with the other acts of what passed 
during his archiepiscopate, and all at the same time 
they were done." This is confirmed by others who 
have examined the register. 1 Now, what are the 
facts? Anthony Huse, the registrar, died in June, 
1560, and was succeeded by John Incent. Huse is 
registrar to folio 221, John Incent from that to folio 
299. The handwriting, then, ought to be different. 
But it is not. The very uniformity upon which Mr. 
Haddan relies is evidence against him. Or are we 
to believe that Anthony Huse wrote in the same 
hand the whole of this register after his death ? for, 
as Archbishop Wake testifies, the writing is in the 
same hand and was done at the time of the events 
recorded. Again, in the acta of confirmation in 
this same register, as printed by Haddan, Francis 
Clarke acts as scribe in the absence of Anthony 

1 Notably Canon Williams, to whose researches in this particular 
matter we are under obligation. 



46 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

Huse. The writing in this instance also should be 

different. But it is not. 

The crowning proof that that part of the register 

recording Parker's consecration is a probable forgery 

is seen in the fatal blunder of whoever wrote it in 

failing to keep correct time. In Haddan's Latin 

copy before us we read : 

The register of the most reverend father in Christ, his lord- 
ship Matthew Parker, elected Archbishop of Canterbury, and 
confirmed by the reverend fathers their lordships William 
Barlow, lately Bishop of Bath and Wells, now elect \nunc elec- 
tuni\ of Chichester, John Scory, formerly Bishop of Chiches- 
ter, now elect [nunc electum\ of Hereford, . . . likewise con- 
secrated by the same reverend fathers, under the same author- 
ity, on the seventeenth day of the same month of December, 
Anthony Huse, Esquire, being then the chief registrar \tunc 
registrario prt7nario\ of the said most reverend father. 

How can Anglican defenders of the register recon- 
cile these different times and make them one and 
the same time? Astounding as it may be, here is 
an attempt to make it appear that this record was 
made at the time the event it records occurred — 
— -" Now " {nunc) — while the fact drops out at the 
end that it was not written until some time after — : 
" Then " {tunc) — that is, after Huse had ceased to be 
registrar ! And, as one of our authorities shows, the 
"now" comprised three days only, for Parker was 
consecrated December 17, and on the twentieth of 
the same month Barlow and Scory were confirmed 
in their sees and were no longer elect, but absolute, 
Bishops of Chichester and Hereford. Of these 



CONSECRATION OF MATTHEW PARKER. 4J 

facts, visible on the face of the register itself, 
Anglican learning and ingenuity have offered no 
explanation. " Nemo dat quod 11011 habet." There 
is no explanation that does not obscure the High 
Church theory, and the whole elaborate scheme 
of evidence supporting the erroneous view of the 
historic episcopate, in ever-thickening, darkening 
doubt. 

The royal historiographer, 1 Rymer, compiled all 
State papers of the period in one great work, en- 
titled Fcedera, Conventiones, Literce, et cujuscumque 
Generis Acta Publiea, etc., giving to each paper copied 
the identical authentication possessed by the origi- 
nal. Those mandates, royal letters patent, etc., that 
bore the great seal are marked by Rymer " Sub 
mcigno sigillo Anglice ; " others are attested under 
the privy seal with the words " Teste rege ; " some 
others are signed by the queen in person, and in 
Rymer all such have the conclusion " Teste regina," 
etc., or "Per ipsam rcginam" The common formula, 
11 Teste rege,'" on many papers is without special 
value unless followed by seal or signature. Now, 
the first mandate for the consecration of Parker, 
dated September 9, 1559, but which was disregarded, 
bears a proper authentication, " Teste regina, .per 
breve de privato sigillo." The second mandate, dated 
December 6, 1559, * s the one under which it is af- 

1 Canon Williams, A nglican Orders; Haddan, Apostolic Succes- 
sion; and Mr. Bailey, Defense of Holy Orders. 



4-3 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

firmed Parker was consecrated Archbishop of Canter- 
bury. What is the authentication ? None ! There 
is no seal, no signature. It is very strange and 
very unfortunate that this particular document in 
this particular case should be without any evidence 
of royal authority. Those who deny its genuineness 
are of the opinion that Elizabeth, chagrined at the 
failure of her first mandate, was too high-spirited to 
issue another when by a mere word, according to the 
teachings of the Reformers in Edward VTs time, and 
of her own appointment, it was lawful to make one 
a bishop or an archbishop. What validity such an 
argument has we will not stop to inquire ; but the 
following evidence is given by those who make it. 
In Rymer (xv, 546) there is a royal commission, prop- 
erly authenticated, authorizing certain ones to ad- 
minister the oath of supremacy to Matthew Parker. 
The document is genuine. What is its date ? Octo- 
ber 20, 1559. Here, then, in this very commission — 
nearly two months before the date of the royal man- 
date of December 6, 1559, issued, it is said, for his 
consecration — the queen herself in a legal document 
styles him archbishop. Was he then archbishop ? 
Mr. Bailey urges the fact that Barlow must have 
been consecrated bishop, because he was once so 
styled by Queen Mary ; " therefore, from this very 
fact it must be admitted that he had been truly con- 
secrated bishop and publicly accepted as such by 
the queen." He quotes Le Courayer at length to 



CONSECRATION OF MATTHEW PARKER. 49 

the same effect. Prior to December 17, 1559, Mat- 
thew Parker is styled archbishop in a legal docu- 
ment by the queen, in which document he is granted 
certain powers which he could not use were he not 
archbishop ; therefore, we might say with Mr. Bailey, 
"from this very fact it must be admitted" that he 
was archbishop before that date, archbishop by 
royal authority, and as such accepted by the found- 
ers of the hierarchy in those " spacious times of 
great Elizabeth." 

Matthew Parker may have been consecrated arch- 
bishop, although the mandate for his consecration 
is without seal or signature ; he may have been con- 
secrated, although the queen by prerogative of royal 
supremacy could have made him archbishop with- 
out consecration, "the state of the time and the 
exigency of affairs rendering it necessary ; " he may 
have, notwithstanding many other things, been con- 
secrated by the persons named, and in the manner 
indicated — but Parker's register alone will never 
prove the fact. 

What other proof, then, is relied upon to corrobo- 
rate Parker's register? There are several relied upon 
by Mr. Haddan, such as Parker's diary and a diary 
kept by a Mr. Machyn, a merchant in London, who 
says, " The xxiii day of June [1559] were elected vi 
neew byshopes com from beyond the see, master 
Parker," etc. — a statement which is not true, for 
Parker did not retire to the Continent, as did many 



50 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

others, on the accession of Mary. The chief sup- 
port, however, is derived from the Zurich Letters. 

Between the Reformers in England and those on 
the Continent a correspondence was maintained, 
which correspondence, known as the Zurich Letters, 
has been published by the Parker Society. High 
Church writers regard this correspondence as clos- 
ing the case against all objectors. Haddan says : 
" These letters prove in detail, with the conclusive- 
ness of undesigned, private, and casual allusions, 
the several consecrations of the bishops, including 
Parker." It cannot be denied, nor is there any ne- 
cessity for denying the fact, that the Zurich Letters 
furnish strong, if not conclusive, evidence that Par- 
ker was made archbishop. That he was was never 
doubted. The manner, the how he was made so, is 
the piece ' de resistance ; and the evidence is just as 
strong for the belief that he was archbishop by royal 
authority only, as others had been made bishops, 
for whose special benefit the Act 8th Elizabeth was 
passed confirming them in their appointment. This 
correspondence, so confidently appealed to by An- 
glicans, is not without its difficulties also, if these 
same Anglicans, between whose views and the teach- 
ings of the Reformers there is no agreement at all, 
would but seriously consider them. 

Mr. Bailey gives one of these letters, from Jewel 
to Peter Martyr, dated at London, July 20, 1559, 
in which Jewel writes, " Some of our friends are 



CONSECRATION OF MATTHEW PARKER. 5 I 

marked out for bishops, Parker for Canterbury," etc. 
But there is another letter from Jewel to Peter 
Martyr which Mr. Bailey does not give. It reads, 
" Yesterday, as soon as I returned to London, I 
heard from the Archbishop of Canterbury that you 
are invited hither, and that your old lectureship is 
open to you." What is the date of this letter? 
November 2, 1559, six weeks before Parker's alleged 
consecration and two weeks after he had been styled 
archbishop by the queen in a legal document. Mr. 
Bailey quotes another letter. It is from Parkhurst 
to Josiah Simler, dated u Bishop's Cleeve, December 
20, 1559," an< 3 reads, " When I was lately in London 
one of the privy councilors and Matthew Parker, the 
Archbishop of Canterbury," etc. Bishop's Cleeve 
is in Gloucestershire. Now, when we reflect upon 
the distance and the mode of travel in those easy 
days, it is clear as sunbeams that Parkhurst left Lon- 
don before December 17, the date of Parker's con- 
secration, and that, therefore, as the queen had 
styled him, and as the letter from Jewel to Peter 
Martyr had styled him, Parker was archbishop be- 
fore December 17. Or will Anglicans assume that 
the elevation of Matthew Parker was so certain that 
he was regarded already as archbishop ? In any 
court the simple response would be, " Prove it." 
There is other testimony to the probability that 
bishops were made by royal designation only, as, 
for instance, the petition of Parker, Cox, Grindal, 



52 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

Scory, and Barlow that Elizabeth should accept cer- 
tain revenues from their sees. These worthy prel- 
ates wer^ not confirmed, it will be remembered, until 
after the consecration of Parker. But this petition 
was not presented, according to Strype {Annals, 
chap, vi), later than September, 1559. How, then, 
could these gentlemen give away the revenues of 
sees they did not possess and over which they had 
no jurisdiction ? The explanation is that they were 
recognized as bishops as soon as nominated by the 
royal prerogative, and nothing further was con- 
sidered necessary. 

Not pursuing this interesting sidepath further, the 
important questions press to the front, Who were 
Parker's consecrators? and, secondly, Did they hold 
to what is now known as Anglican belief concerning 
ministerial orders ? If the Reformers were not High 
Church men, representing such belief in the Church 
in the name of which they consecrated Matthew 
Parker, if they did not believe in the necessity of 
episcopal ordination at all, but recognized freely the 
ministerial character of ministers in other Churches 
not possessing or indorsing episcopal ordination — all 
of which are facts of history — then it is simply im- 
possible to find in the Church of England by law es- 
tablished any intelligible basis for the notion of an 
historic episcopate which is now made a funda- 
mental condition of ecclesiastical union. 



FOUNDERS OF THE HIERARCHY. 53 



F 



CHAPTER III. 
Founders of the Hierarchy* 

ROM the consecration we turn to the consecra- 
tors. The bishops who consecrated Matthew 
Parker were, according to the register, William Bar- 
low, John Scory, Miles Coverdale, and John Hodg- 
kins. Now, from our assumed position of apostolical 
succession, we may inquire, What authority did these 
ministers possess to consecrate an archbishop? 
Were they themselves really bishops ? Were they 
canonically ordained ? Is there no doubt whatever 
attached to their orders ? Would men of their 
avowed beliefs be ordained now by any bishop in 
the Church of England or in the Protestant Episco- 
pal denomination ? 

On scriptural grounds and on the rights inherent 
In the Church we may readily acknowledge their au- 
thority. But High Church writers do not appeal to 
Holy Scripture; their appeal is to the power of 
orders received in uninterrupted succession. By this 
doctrine, then, it is truly just that we should test the 
orders of Parker's consecrators and conclude if there 
is no doubt shadowing their orders, that Matthew 
Parker may have been an archbishop, though it will 
by no means follow that therefore apostolical succes- 



54 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

sion was continued in the Church of England, On 
the other hand, if any doubt rests upon the valid- 
ity of their orders, the historic episcopate among 
the Anglicans is nothing more than an empty 
phrase. 

Now, that there were grave doubts concerning 
the authority of some or all of these consecrators is 
sufficiently evident from the famous supplying clause 
in the mandate commanding them to consecrate Dr. 
Parker: 

Supplying, nevertheless, by our supreme royal authority, of 
our mere motion and certain knowledge, whatever (either in 
the things to be done by you pursuant to our aforesaid man- 
date, or in you, or any of you, your condition, state, or power 
for the performance of the premises) may or shall be wanting 
of those things which, either by the statutes of this realm or by 
the ecclesiastical laws, are required or are necessary on this be- 
half, the state of the times and the exigency of affairs rendering 
it necessary. 

And here we may observe that this clause refutes 
beyond all question the plea that Elizabeth's su- 
premacy was only of a civil character. The queen, 
as sovereign of England, does not simply permit the 
consecration to take place within her dominions, 
but, as head of the Church, enters the spiritual do- 
main of the Church and by her authority dispenses 
with all disabilities, and supplies whatever is want- 
ing for any cause in the power of these consecrators. 
As in part of Henry VIII's reign and in that of 
Edward VI, the power of the bishops had its source 
in the crown. " On the accession of Edward VI," 



FOUNDERS OF THE HIERARCHY. 55 

says Froude, 1 " the bishops of the realm were to re- 
gard themselves as possessed of no authority inde- 
pendent of the crown. They were not successors 
of the apostles, but merely ordinary officials. Cran- 
mer set the willing example in an acknowledgment 
that all jurisdiction, ecclesiastical as well as secular, 
within the realm only emanated from the sovereign. " 
To return to the main question. If there were no 
apprehensions of illegality, if there were no doubts, it 
is difficult to understand the necessity for this ex- 
traordinary, unprecedented, and most comprehensive 
exercise of the royal supremacy. Anglican writers 
feel the weight of this testimony, and, anxious to 
dispel the doubts in the case of Barlow and his as- 
sistants, they endeavor by every ingenuity of argu- 
ment to break the force of it. Mr. Haddan attempts 
to dispose of it by the offhand remark that " that 
clause, it seems hardly necessary to say, referred, by 
the nature of the case, to possible legal defects, and 
to those only, and among others [what others?] to 
the very cavils advanced just afterward by Bonner." 
But strong assertion is no substitute for proof. The 
clause itself is sufficient refutation of Haddan's rash 
statement, for it refers not only to legal disabilities 
of a civil nature, but expressly bears upon the per- 
sonal "condition, state, or power," wanting in the 

1 History of England, vol. v, American ed. See also Burnet, Col- 
lection of Rcco7-ds, number 2, where the commission is given in full. 
Thus, we see, by law, and not by spiritual authority emanating from 
the Church, was the hierarchy established. 



56 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

consecrators, but required " either by the statutes of 
this realm or by the ecclesiastical laws." Did these 
men have authority under existing civil laws to or- 
dain ? It matters not; this comprehensive clause 
supplies the authority. But did they have authority 
to perform that act under existing ecclesiastical laws ? 
It matters not ; this supplying clause covers that de- 
fect also. The truth is that, if they were not bishops 
at all, there is nothing in the mandate or in this 
supplying clause that would prohibit them from per- 
forming the episcopal function of ordination ; but, on 
the contrary, it is expressly and minutely declared 
that any defect, of any character whatever, arising 
from any want of power whatever in state or condi- 
tion, is supplied by " supreme royal authority," " the 
state of the times and the exigency of affairs ren- 
dering it necessary." 

Mr. Haddan's other claim, that the clause in ques- 
tion referred to certain cavils, and among others to 
those advanced "just afterward by Bonner," is very 
sweeping ; but, on examination, it in no manner es- 
tablishes his contention. Bishop Bonner was in 
prison in 1563, and refused, when Bishop Home, of 
Winchester, presented him the oath, to acknowledge 
the queen's supremacy or to recognize the episco- 
pal character of Home, on the ground that, as was 
alleged, he was ordained by King Edward's Ordinal, 
which, having been abrogated by 1st Mary, sess.2,c.2, 
had not been expressly restored by act of Parlia- 



FOUNDERS OF THE HIERARCHY. 57 

ment, and that, therefore, he was not legally a bishop. 
Bonner held his ground, and Home could do noth- 
ing with him. There was evident fear to test the 
validity of the recent ordinations. But Mr. Haddan 
endeavors to make it appear that the only reason 
for not contesting Bonner's answer was purely a civil 
law reason. He says, " This objection was regarded 
by the lawyers as so strong legally that, on the one 
hand, Bonner's case was not allowed to come to an 
issue," etc. But let us go back a little. The com- 
mission containing the supplying clause was written 
December 6, 1559, four years before Bonner's cavils 
astonished the lawyers. It was, when written, sub- 
mitted by the queen to the highest legal authorities 
in England, " divers doctors of both faculties," who 
declared and recorded their opinion : 

That by this commission in this forme pennid as well as the 
Oueene's Majestie may lawfully auctorize the p'sons within 
namid to the effects specified as the said p'sons maye exercise 
the acte of confirminge and consecratinge in the same to them 
committid. 

Will'am Maye, Henry Harvey, 

Robert Weston, Thomas Yall, 

Edward Leedes, Nicholas Bullingham. 

Now, is it not a little remarkable that a judicial 
declaration of the highest importance of six eminent 
lawyers of canon and civil law, affirming a certain 
royal writ to be lawful — which writ, by the mere au- 
thority of the queen, vested in her by Parliament, 
was in itself lawful — should be utterly set aside by 



58 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

one man, not a lawyer, as unlawful? Is it not very 
singular that these jurists did not know the acts of 
Parliament passed at that time, or that they did not 
know that the supplying clause and the royal su- 
premacy supplied, according to intent and letter, 
every possible defect in law, and that, therefore, 
Bonner had no defense before the law ? Does it 
not really border on the marvelous, if they did not 
know these things, that they should have declared 
the queen's mandate with this clause to have been 
lawful ; and that, if they did not know these simple 
and elementary facts, they nevertheless, these crown 
lawyers, only four years afterward should consider 
Bonner's legal objections to be " so strong " that 
they could not bring him to trial? 

Haddan's attempt to divert attention from the 
real purpose of the supplying clause, and to make 
it appear that astute and learned lawyers, with all 
the support of the crown at their back, were turned 
down by the legal cavilings of a prisoner, cannot be 
considered a masterful piece of reasoning. If this 
clause was not lawful or authoritative in respect to 
this matter, in what other respect was it or could it 
have been lawful and finally authoritative? What 
was the supplying clause for ? Moreover, Mr. Had- 
dan's argument makes the power of the royal su- 
premacy to be no power, and the supremacy itself 
to be no supremacy, for the reason that the strongest 
document that the crown could draw up was of no 



FOUNDERS OF THE HIERARCHY. 59 

avail, could not give authority or supply defects, al- 
though crown lawyers decreed that it could. The 
argument is, also, suicidal ; for if Bonner's objections 
were so strong legally that he could not be brought 
to trial, how could this supplying clause relieve Par- 
ker's consecrators of ecclesiastical disabilities? Could 
Bonner make no cavil on the side of canon law as 
strong as the objection he did make from the stand- 
point of civil law ? The truth in the case is, there 
were doubts concerning the ecclesiastical ability of 
the consecrators to perform the act of consecration, 
and these doubts were more to be feared if discussed 
openly than the legal technicalities of Bonner; for 
Bishop Home was not the only personage in the 
kingdom who could offer him the oath on the royal 
supremacy. Queen Elizabeth herself, if we may rely 
on the author of that standard work, The Queens of 
England? was by no means free from doubt, and 
seemed to have remained doubtful of the genuine- 
ness of the hierarchy she had created. Quoting 
Lady Southwell on the last days of Elizabeth, she 
says : 

When she was near her end the council sent to her the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury and other prelates, at the sight of which 
she was much offended, cholerically rating them, bidding them 
" be packing," saying she was no atheist, but she knew full 
well they were but hedge priests. 

1 Miss Strickland, vii, p. 223. See also Fronde. History of E?ig- 
land, p. 568 : " She called them doctors, as the highest title to which 
she considered them to have any right." 



60 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

When we consider the chaotic condition of re- 
ligious opinion in those stirring days of the Refor- 
mation it is not surprising that there should have 
been grave doubts among all classes concerning the 
genuineness of the new priesthood. The conflict 
between Romanism and Protestantism was at its 
highest ; it was difficult to shake off the influence of 
centuries of teaching relative to the priesthood and 
the powers of episcopacy ; confusion in the beliefs of 
the Reformers themselves was as the discordant 
sounds of jangling bells ; between the Roman 
views of the queen concerning the ministry and the 
Genevan tenets of some of her leading bishops there 
was little harmony, all of which is painfully man- 
ifest in the correspondence carried on between the 
Reformers in England and their brethren in Ger- 
many and Switzerland. 

From the " Order of Rites and Ceremonies," in 
Parker's register, we learn that William Barlow was 
the presiding bishop, and was in fact and theory the 
chief consecrator. 

The gospels at length finished, the elect of Here- 
ford, the Suffragan of Bedford, and Miles Coverdale, 
of whom above, conducted the archbishop before the 
elect of Chichester [Barlow], seated in a chair at the 
table, with these words : 

Reverend father in God, we offer and present to you this 
pious and learned man, that he may be consecrated archbishop. 

Mr. Haddan remarks in a footnote, "It will be 



FOUNDERS OF THE HIERARCHY. 6 1 

observed that no distinction is made between the 
presiding bishop and the assistant bishops." The 
purpose of the statement, and also of the register, is 
to bring out the fact that all four laid hands on Par- 
ker and that they were, therefore, all equally consecra- 
tors. We cannot escape the conviction that this is 
an afterthought and is not according to facts. There 
never was a record like it, before or since. The 
register states that the Ordinal of Edward VI was 
used ; and yet in this important particular these 
bishops, without any reason, depart from the Ordinal, 
from the usage of ages in every land, from the im- 
memorial usage in England, and devise a method of 
their own, unknown in any Church in any age, and 
one that is unauthorized by any law, civil or ca- 
nonical. From that day to this there has not been 
an ordination like it, and there never was one be- 
fore it. He who wrote this part of the register seems 
to have balanced between the fact of Barlow's being 
the consecrator and the less harmful alternative that 
all four were equal in the ordination. But we do 
not believe that these bishops disregarded the Ed- 
wardine Ordinal without cause and invented a method 
of their own. The register comes near enough to 
the facts to show that William Barlow was the presid- 
ing bishop, which would put him in place of a chief 
consecrator, for a presiding bishop is not to keep 
order or to be a master of ceremonies ; and to him 

the others presented Parker for consecration accord- 
5 



62 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

ing to the Ordinal, which orders that after the gospel 
and credo are ended the elected bishop or arch- 
bishop " shall be presented ... to the archbishop, 
or to some other bishop appointed by his commis- 
sion, the bishops presenting saying," etc. The bishop 
or archbishop then submits certain questions and re- 
ceives response. " Then the archbishop and bishops 
present shall lay their hands upon the head of the 
elect bishop, the archbishop saying," etc. The be- 
lief that Barlow filled this office is supported also 
by the fact, adduced by Canon Estcourt, that among 
the Fox manuscripts in the British Museum is a 
document which he places alongside the Parker 
register, and which distinctly states that William 
Barlow was the consecrating bishop. 

But when was William Barlow himself ever conse- 
crated bishop ? Where ? By whom ? 

Barlow on Parker his hands he laid, 
But who laid hands on him? 

It is when an attempt is made to answer these 
vital questions that the reason for denying the chief 
place to Bishop Barlow in transmitting the grace of 
apostolical succession is made manifest. 

The Rev. Mr. Bailey produces copies of all the 
documents relating to the episcopacy of Barlow, and 
on these we suppose we may confidently rely, since 
he relies upon them in his defense of the validity of 
Anglican orders. What then are the historical facts ? 

William Barlow in the reign of Henry VIII was 



FOUNDERS OF THE HIERARCHY. 63 

prior of the monastery of Bisham, of the order of 
St. Augustine. A faithful servant of the king, his 
usefulness to Henry in his conflict with Rome was 
no doubt agreeable to his religious convictions. As 
to his views of ministerial orders, they were exceed- 
ing loose, and would most surely be abhorred now by 
High Church apologists, who are very willing, never- 
theless, to profit by his acts. In 1536-7 he was com- 
plained of to the king's council for declaring " that 
wheresoever two or three simple persons, as two cob- 
blers or weavers, were in company and elected in the 
name of God, there was the true Church of God ; " 
also, " that if the king's grace, being supreme head 
of the Church in England, did choose, denominate, 
and elect any layman to be a bishop, that he so 
chosen should be as good a bishop as he is, or the 
best in England." In answer to certain questions 
of Cranmer, as we shall see, he held that bishops 
have no authority to ordain except it be given by 
the king ; that consecration is unnecessary and ap- 
pointment only is sufficient ; and that bishops and 
priests at the beginning were all one. Anglicans 
seem to have good reason for their dislike of Barlow 
as consecrator of Parker. 

In 1534, October 3, under the title of " Mr. Barlo, 
Prior of Bisham," he was sent by Henry VIII on 
an embassy to King James V of Scotland. The 
episcopal see of St. Asaph becoming vacant by the 
death of its bishop, King Henry issued a conge delire 



64 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

on the 7th of January, 1536, present style, in favor 
of Barlow, and on the sixteenth of the same month 
he was elected to that see. The temporalities of the 
diocese were granted him February 2, same year, 
and the royal assent, peculiarly worded, was given 
February 22 for his consecration. But no mandate 
for his consecration is anywhere to be found, if such 
a commission was ever issued. 1 During this time 
Barlow was in Scotland, where he had been sent on a 
second embassy. In proof of this, letters among State 
papers in the public record office are put in evidence. 

It will be observed that up to this date Barlow is 
only bishop elect of St. Asaph, not consecrated. 

On February 18, same year (1536), Richard Raw- 
lins, Bishop of St. David's, died. Mr. Bailey says: 

Into his place Barlow was substituted with such great haste 
that 011 the tenth of the following April his election by the 
precentor and chapter of St. David's was completed, 2 and his 
confirmation took place on the twenty-first. 

Up tothis date, then, he is neither consecrated Bishop 
of St. Asaph, to which he was first elected, nor of 
St. David's, to which he has now been elected and 
confirmed. But a strange thing now makes its 

1 " The temporalities of the see were restored February 2, 1535-6 
(Wood, Athen. Oxon.), and he was confirmed by proxy either Febru- 
ary 22 or 23 ; for the archbishop's commission to confirm is dated 
February 22, and the certificate to the king of the confirmation 
February 23 of the same year [Cranmers Register, 188a, 211a) ; but 
no mandate to consecrate is to be found — merely the royal assent." — 
Bailey, p. 69. 

2 Cranmer's Register. 



FOUNDERS OF THE HIERARCHY. 65 

appearance and shows how lightly Cranmer himself 
esteemed canonical ordination. In the certificate 
of Barlow's confirmation to this see of St. David's 
returned by Cranmer, and found in his register (fol. 
205), as given by Bailey, Barlow is absolutely styled 
full Bishop of St. Asaph : " Whereas we have con- 
firmed the election lately made of the reverend 
father, the Lord William Barlowe, lately Bishop of 
St. Asaph." 

Was it at this point that Barlow's usurpation of 
episcopacy began ? Here in a legal document he is 
declared by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas 
Cranmer, to be a bishop, and his see is named, when 
as a matter of history he has so far never been con- 
secrated at all. This fact is further proved, if further 
proof were necessary, from a royal writ, dated May 
29, 1536, granting a conge <Tclire for a bishop to the 
" see of St. Asaph, now destitute of the solace of 
a pastor by the free translation of William Barlowe, 
last bishop elect of the same," and also by the man- 
date to consecrate Robert Wharton to the bishopric 
of St. Asaph, " lately vacant by the free translation 
of William Barlowe, last bishop elect of the same." 

Barlow is now, April 21, 1536, confirmed to the 
see of St. David's. On the twenty-fifth of that 
month the temporalities of the bishopric are turned 
over to him by royal writ, " certain causes and con- 
siderations us specially moving," and on the twenty- 
seventh he is summoned to the House of Lords as 



66 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

actual bishop. But when and where was he conse- 
crated? Who were his consecrators ? 

To these questions, which are the only questions 
of any importance in this case, there is no answer. 
On the other hand, the deeper we investigate the 
darker the subject becomes, and we walk among 
shadows, dealing with misrepresentations and trou- 
blesome evasions. For instance, Barlow, in his 
documents for St. David's, calls himself Bishop of 
St. Asaph. But Haddan, who strains every point 
in his favor, is forced by the evidence to admit 
that " the documents relating to his successor at 
St. Asaph, dated in May, June, and July, 1 536, seem 
to exclude the possibility of his having been conse- 
crated to that see ; as they, on the one hand, speak 
of him throughout as merely episcopus Assavensis 
clecttiSy and, on the other, they describe the vacancy 
as occurring — not by his 'translation/ as if he had 
been a consecrated bishop — per cessionem, dimissi- 
011cm, seu trcuismutationem dni. W. Barlowe episcopi- 
ibidem clecti ; as though the registrars had been at 
a loss for a term to describe the transference from 
one see to another of a person simply confirmed to 
the first, but not consecrated." 

To the see of St. David's, then, he comes as a 
consecrated bishop, and is ever afterward supposed 
to be such, and is accepted as such, when, as a mat- 
ter of fact, there is no evidence that he was ever con- 
secrated at all, but every particle of proof tending to 



FOUNDERS OF THE HIERARCHY. 67 

demonstrate the opposite. He was bishop solely by 
King Henry's appointment. Any number of pro- 
motions, translations, or summonses to Parliament 
after this assumption of the episcopal office prove 
nothing as to the essential fact of consecration. Nor 
is it anything to the point that he exercised his office 
under Edward VI, or that he was deprived by 
Queen Mary, or that he was again recognized under 
Queen Elizabeth. For it is not likely that, having 
been described in State papers and royal writs under 
Henry as bishop, any attempt would be made 
by those who cared as little as himself about the 
validity of orders to contest the record. Francis 
Mason's efforts, also, to clear away the doubts that 
settle down, like a heavy fog, on Barlow's ordination 
serve only to confirm one in the belief that such labor 
is in very truth a hopeless task. In speaking of the 
temporalities being granted Barlow on his entrance 
to the see of St. David's, he says : 

If he had not as yet received episcopal consecration he 
would not have been capable of this benefice, nor would he 
have been able to receive this priory in his own name and 
those of his successors. 

Mason regarded this as strong proof that Barlow 
must have been ordained, and Anglican writers 
make the most of it possible. But, neverthe- 
less, like many other such proofs, its real worth- 
lessness is made manifest when unimpeachable 
evidence from royal writs and State papers of 



68 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

various kinds is produced showing without any 
doubt that, whether he could or could not legally, 
had the truth been known and the law enforced, 
have received the temporalities, he did receive the 
temporalities of the see of St. Asaph before he was 
consecrated. For we have seen from the documents 
that they were restored to him February 2, 1536, at 
which date he was not even confirmed to the see, 
to say nothing of being consecrated. Therefore, 
what could have been done, and was done, by 
royal authority, whether right or wrong, could 
have been done by the same authority with refer- 
ence to the priory of Bisham or the temporalities 
of St. David's. The evidence in the case, when 
summed up, leads to no other conclusion than that 
William Barlow, the ordainer of Archbishop Parker, 
was himself never ordained to the episcopal office. 

The episcopal character of Barlow's assistants, 
Dr. Scory, Miles Coverdale, and John Hodgkins, 
need not detain us. Hodgkins was only a suffragan 
bishop ; and if we do not emphasize the statement 
of the celebrated Field, in his Book of the Church, 
that in the early Church suffragans were not allowed 
to meddle with ordination, it is that we may call 
attention to a matter of more importance. A suf- 
fragan has no authority or jurisdiction except what 
is given him by the bishop or archbishop. Hodg- 
kins was suffragan in title only, not in reality ; hence 
he could give no jurisdiction to one who was to be 



FOUNDERS OF THE HIERARCHY. 69 

his chief and from whom he himself must derive his 
authority. To this it will be answered that he had 
been suffragan bishop but had been deprived under 
Mary. But if it was lawful for Elizabeth to deprive 
bishops of their sees, was it not also lawful for Mary? 
Doctor Scory and Miles Coverdale were raised to 
the episcopacy in the chaotic days of Edward VI. 
Their ordination was by Archbishop Cranmer, as- 
sisted by Bishop Ridley 1 and Hodgkins, Suffragan 
of Bedford, and according to the Edwardine Ordinal. 
Now, it is well known that that Ordinal recognized 
no distinction in order between a bishop and a pres- 
byter. This is acknowledged by Bishop Burnet, 
who says that in that Ordinal there was " no express 
mention made in the words in ordaining them that 
it was for one or the other office." Further, we know 
that Cranmer, who ordained these consecrators of 
Parker, did not himself believe in three distinct 
orders, or that ordination was absolutely necessary. 
What opinion, then, can defenders of the Anglican 
claims have of the consecration of Scory and Cover- 
dale ? Did they receive from Cranmer the grace of 
apostolical succession ? Did he or the martyr Rid- 
ley intend to convey such grace ? Such, then, are 
the doubts that shroud the episcopal character of 
the consecrators of Matthew Parker. 

1 Fox relates in his Book of Martyrs that when Bishops Latimer 
and Ridley were executed the Roman Bishop of Gloucester declared 
\hem degraded from the priesthood, not from the episcopacy. 



yo THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 



CHAPTER IV. 
The Doctrine of Orders in the Anglican Ordinal. 

THE Reformers who founded the Church of Eng- 
land did not revolt simply against the tyranny 
and usurpations of Rome ; but deeper than any 
question of aggression or of papal supremacy was 
the conviction that the Church of Rome, in its awful 
corruption of faith and morals, had become the Anti- 
christ. To them it was the scarlet woman of Reve- 
lation, the mother of harlots, the sink of all spiritual 
abomination. Hence the Reformation in England 
was designed to be, not a protest merely against pa- 
pal power, but a cleansing of the temple of God ; and, 
in the furtherance of this, all doctrines, rites, and 
ceremonies in which the spirit of Romanism was in- 
fused, or which would be interpreted as retaining 
any of the doctrinal ideas peculiar to the Roman 
Church, were rejected as rapidly as circumstances 
would permit, with all the grosser superstitions fos- 
tered by that Church to the scandal of Christian 
truth. 

Among the divine offices to be reformed was the 
giving of holy orders. In November, 1550, a bill 
for the form of ordaining ministers was introduced 
in the House of Lords and agreed to, the Roman 



ORDERS IN THE ANGLICAN ORDINAL. J I 

Bishops of Durham, Carlisle, Worcester, Chichester, 
and Westminster dissenting. They well knew that 
the reform contemplated meant an utter rejection 
of the doctrine of orders as held by Rome, and a 
Protestantizing of the ministry — that is, a new in- 
stitution of the ministry on purely evangelical prin- 
ciples. The substance of the bill was that six prel- 
ates and six theologians, to be named by the king 
and authorized by a warrant under the great seal, 
should draw up a form of ordination, and that that 
form should be the only one used after the follow- 
ing April. The commission was appointed. There 
were several rituals in use, the old Sarum pontifical, 
the rituals of Lincoln and of York ; but these were 
set aside, for the reason that a ministry of an entirely 
different character from that in the ordination of 
which those rituals had been used was designed, and 
a new ritual was devised, presented to Parliament, 
and adopted. That ritual was known as the Ordinal 
of Edward VI, and was used by the Church of Eng- 
land in the ordination of her ministers from 1549 till 
1662, a space of one hundred and thirteen years. 
That Ordinal is the ritual used from the beginning, 
with a few changes, chiefly abbreviations, by the 
Methodist Episcopal Church in the ordination of 
her bishops, presbyters, and deacons. It is anti- 
sacerdotal, and knows nothing of a mystical, trans- 
mitted grace or of three orders in the ministry by 
divine enactment. 



72 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

It is our purpose, then, to show that the ritual of 
the Church of England, before that ritual was changed 
in 1662 to its present form, is a standing witness 
against the present Anglican theory of the historic 
episcopate — first, in that it neither confers nor recog- 
nizes a priestly character in those ordained ; and, 
secondly, that it abolishes all distinctions of order 
between presbyter and bishop by divine injunction. 
It is necessary to do this, for, notwithstanding the 
changes made in the Ordinal by convocation in 1662, 
an earnest effort is made to make it appear that the 
doctrine of orders in the Church of England during 
the Reformation, when that Church was organized, 
is identical w r ith the High Church views held now; 
that its ministers were really ordained priests ; that 
a mystical, sacerdotal grace was believed to be con- 
ferred in ordination ; that there were three distinct 
orders in the Christian ministry; and that episcopal 
ordination was considered essential to valid minis- 
terial functions. This position, unhistorical as it is, 
Anglicans are compelled by their Romish principles 
to assume. For it is evident that if this was not the 
explicit teaching of the Church of England at its 
establishment ; if its founders did not believe in three 
distinct orders jure divino; if they did not believe 
that any sacramental grace or mystical character was 
impressed orconferred in ordination — if, in one word, 
the Reformers who founded the Church of England 
did not hold the Roman Catholic doctrine of orders, 



ORDERS IN THE ANGLICAN ORDINAL. 73 

minus papal supremacy, now maintained by High 
Anglicans — then all claims to an historic episcopate 
in the Church of England and the Protestant Epis- 
copal Church are without foundation, and the min- 
istry in those Churches have no better credentials to 
show than have the ministry of other Churches, and 
their claims to apostolical succession are wholly 
groundless except in the same sense claimed by 
other Churches. 

The radical difference intended by the Reformers 
between the old ministry and the new can be fully 
comprehended, not only by what they put into the 
new ritual for the ordination of ministers, but also 
by what they purposely left out. They were men 
versed in the writings of the fathers, in ecclesiastical 
history, in theology, in the originals of the Holy 
Scriptures, and certainly were thoroughly acquainted 
with the Roman pontifical and the forms of ordi- 
nation employed in the ancient diocesan sees of 
England. It is therefore very singular that the 
Reformers, if they believed in the theories now ad- 
vocated by Anglicans, should deliberately reject 
these old Ordinals, eliminate everything savoring 
of the old ideas relating to the ministry, and should 
devise an Ordinal of their own, which was so thor- 
oughly opposed to anything like priesthood, sacra- 
mental grace, and uninterrupted succession that 
that same Ordinal, with a change here and there, 
and abbreviated as to the prayers, could be 



74 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

adopted and is used by the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. 

We have said that the founders of the English 
Church rejected the ancient Ordinals ; but the new- 
Ordinal was based upon them all, omitting, as stated, 
the distinctive features of the old clerical character. 
This will be seen on consideration of the following. 

In the Roman pontifical for the ordaining of 
presbyters we read : " For it behooveth a priest [sac- 
erdotein] to offer, to bless, or consecrate \benedicere\, 
to preside, to preach, to baptize." In Edward's Ordi- 
nal there is nothing of this, but instead a godly ad- 
monition to be messengers, pastors, stewards of the 
Lord, to teach, premonish, to feed and provide for 
the Lord's family. In the pontifical there is prayer 
for the mystical grace of priesthood, and distinct ref- 
erence to it is constantly made : " Pour upon these 
thy servants the benediction of the Holy Ghost, and 
the virtue of priestly grace \et gratia sacerdotalis 
infunde virtuteni] ;" and again, " Whence the priestly 
degrees and Levitical offices by mystical sacraments 
grew up." " In like manner in the wilderness thou 
didst propagate the spirit that was in Moses into the 
minds of seventy prudent men." "So also thou 
didst transfuse into Eleazar and Ithamar, the sons of 
Aaron, abundance of the fullness that was in their 
father." In the ordaining are these words : " Receive 
thou power to offer sacrifice to God, and to celebrate 
masses both for the living and the dead. In the 



ORDERS IN THE ANGLICAN ORDINAL. 75 

name," etc. Nothing of this is to be found in the 
Edwardine Ordinal. We have there simply, " Re- 
ceive the Holy Ghost. Whose sins thou dost forgive 
they are forgiven, and whose sins thou dost retain 
they are retained ; and be thou a faithful dispenser 
of the word of God, and of his holy sacraments. In 
the name," etc. And, "Take thou authority to 
preach the word of God, and to minister the holy 
sacraments in the congregation." The Reformers 
knew that the idea of priesthood was foreign to the 
New Testament, that never in one single instance 
did the apostles call themselves priests or designate 
any minister as such ; and therefore that idea and its 
associations were rejected by them in the devising 
of the Ordinal. 

The unfortunate word " priest," however, was re- 
tained, as well as "presbyter ;" but the word gave of- 
fense to many of the best minds. Hooker wrote : 
" In truth, the word ' presbyter ' doth seem more fit, 
and in propriety of speech more agreeable, than 
1 priest ' with the drift of the whole Gospel of Jesus 
Christ ; " and '■ What better title could then be given 
than the reverend name of presbyters, or fatherly 
guides ? The Holy Ghost throughout the body of 
the New Testament, making so much mention of 
them, doth not anywhere call them priests." ' 

The views and intentions of the Reformers con- 
cerning the new ministry may now be considered 

1 Ecclesiastical Polity, v, 78. 



y6 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

further, in an examination of the second statement 
that the Ordinal does not recognize three orders by 
divine right. 

j Mr. Bailey begins his defense of holy orders in the 
'Church of England by quoting the Preface to the Or 
dinal, published 1549: 

It is evident unto all men diligently reading Holy Scripture 
and ancient authors that, from the apostles' time, there hath been 
these three orders of ministers in Christ's Church — bishops, 
priests, and deacons. 

Triumphantly is this declaration paraded by High 
Chcurhmen as evidence that the Reformed ministry 
of the Established Church was founded upon belief 
in the historic episcopate. But, if this statement is 
proof of that fact, Calvin himself, who so vigorously 
opposed episcopacy, must be credited with the same 
belief when, in his Institutes, 1 he gives the origin 
of bishops and quotes Jerome. The real matter at 
issue is not whether these Reformers believed in 
episcopacy, but whether they believed in bishops by 
divine right as distinct from, and superior to, presby- 
ters. Now, while the authors of the Ordinal recog- 
nized episcopal form of government to have been 
conformable to Holy Scripture and of ancient cus- 
tom, as did also the founders of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church in council assembled 1784-5, yet they 
nowhere assert these three orders of bishops, priests, 
and deacons to be three separate and distinct orders. 

1 Book iv, chap, iv, 2. 



ORDERS IN THE ANGLICAN ORDINAL. J? 

The Ordinal itself is testimony to this, for the same 
lessons read in the ordination of a presbyter were 
read in the consecration of a bishop. A careful con- 
sideration of these lessons will reveal clearly the 
views held by those who framed this ritual : 

ORDERING OF PRIESTS (PRESBYTERS). 

Ordinal of 1549. Ordinal as changed 1662. 

Acts xx, 17-35. "Take heed 4. Eph. iv, 7-13. " And he 
therefore unto yourselves, and gave some, apostles ; and some, 
to all the flock, over the which prophets ; and some, pastors," 
the Holy Ghost hath made you etc. 
overseers [bishops], to feed the 
Church of God," etc. 

1 Tim. iii, 1-16. " This is a 7. Matt, ix, 36-38. "When 
true saying, If any man desir- Jesus saw the multitudes, he 
eth the office of a bishop, he de- was moved with compassion on 
sireth a good work. A bishop them, because they fainted, and 
then must be blameless," etc. were scattered," etc. 

Matt, xxviii, 18-20. "And 9. John x, 1-16. 
Jesus came and spake unto 
them, saying, All power is 
given unto me in heaven and in 
earth. Go ye therefore," etc. 

John x, 1-16. 

John xx, 19-23. " Then said 
Jesus to them again, Peace be 
unto you : as my Father hath 

sent me, even so send I you," 14. " Receive the Holy -Ghost 
etc. for the office and work of a 

" Receive the Holy Ghost, priest in the Church of God, 
Whose sins thou dost," etc. now committed," etc. 

In 1662, when episcopacy in the Church of Eng- 
land was for the first time made indispensable to a 

valid ministry, the lessons which were read in the 
6 



78 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

ordination of a presbyter, and which spoke of presby- 
ters as being bishops, were used exclusively in the 
ordinationof bishops, and the lessons from the Epistle 
to the Ephesians and from Matthew's gospel (ix, 
36—38) substituted in their place, as has been shown 
in the preceding page. The change will be seen in 
this: 

COMPARISON OF SCRIPTURE TEXTS IN THE CONSECRA- 
TION OF BISHOPS AND PRIESTS. 

For the ordaining of priests For the ordaining of bishops, 

{presbyters), in the Ordinal i?i the Ordinal of 1662. 
0/1549- 

Acts xx, 17-35. Acts xx, 17-35. 

1 Tim. iii, 1-16. 1 Tim.iii, 1-16. 

Matt, xxviii, 18-20. Matt, xxviii, 18-20. 

John xx, 19-23. John xx, 19-23. 

John x, 1-16. John xx, 15-17. 

From a comparison of these texts it is beyond 
question that a distinction of order between presby- 
ter and bishop was not intended to be taught, but 
was, on the contrary, denied, by those who devised 
and authorized the Ordinal. From 1549 to 1662, a 
period of one hundred and thirteen years, the Church 
of England applied the same Scripture texts to the 
order of, and in the consecration of, a presbyter, that 
she did to the order of, and in the consecration of, 
a bishop, which custom can be accounted for in no 
other way than these orders were regarded by her 
as one and the same order. 

This is not solely our individual opinion, derived 



ORDERS IN THE ANGLICAN ORDINAL. 79 

as that is from the Ordinal itself. It is the authorized 
and published statement of those who compiled the 
Ordinal, and who in that case are the best judges of 
what they intended should be understood as the doc- 
trine of the Church of England. In 1 536 a document, 
entitled " A Declaration Made of the Functions and 
Divine Institution of Bishops and Priests" (Burnet, 
Addenda to Original Records), was issued by author- 
ity. At the close of that declaration, after enumer- 
ating the various orders which had grown up in the 
Church in the course of time, the distinct affirmation 
is made, " The truth is that in the New Testament 
there is no mention made of any degrees or distinc- 
tions in orders, but only of deacons or ministers, and 
of priests or bishops." This document was signed by 
the highest representatives of the Church of Eng- 
land, comprising two archbishops, eleven bishops, 
a number of abbots and professors of sacred theology, 
and doctors of civil and of ecclesiastical law. But, as 
stated, many of those whose names are signed to 
this document were those, with Archbishop Cran- 
mer at their head, who afterward framed the Ordi- 
nal, which therefore expresses the unchanged, au- 
thorized teaching of the Church of England. 

There is another record of this period which fur- 
nishes further proof of the fact. The Ordinal was 
published in 1 549. In 1 540, only four years after the 
issue of the above declaration, Archbishop Cranmer 
presented certain questions to eminent authorities 



80 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

in the Church, asking which were first, presbyters or 
bishops ; whether at the beginning a presbyter made 
a bishop ; whether a bishop hath authority to make 
a priest by the Scripture, or no ; whether, according 
to the New Testament, consecration is required or 
only appointment be sufficient. We copy from the 
Records in Burnet, part i, book iii. 

THE RESOLUTIONS OF SEVERAL BISHOPS AND DIVINES OF 
SOME QUESTIONS CONCERNING THE SACRAMENTS. . . . 
TAKEN FROM THE ORIGINALS UNDER THEIR OWN HANDS. 

10. Question. 
Whether bishops or priests were first ? And if the priests 
were first, then the priest made the bishop. 

Answer. 

The bishops and priests were at one time, and w r ere no two 
things, but both one office in the beginning of Christ's religion. 1 

The name of a bishop is not properly a name of order, but a 
name of office, signifying an overseer. 2 

Agreement. 
In the tenth [as above], . . . the Bishop of St. David's, my lord 
elect of Westminster, Dr. Cox, Dr. Redmayn, say that " at 
the beginning they were all one." [Other bishops had other 
views, but they were opposed to Reformation.] 

1 1 . Question. 
Whether a bishop hath authority to make a priest by the 
Scripture, or no ? And whether any other, but only a bishop, 
may make a priest? 

Answer. 

A bishop may make a priest by the Scripture, and so may 
princes and governors also, and that by the authority of God 
committed to them. 3 

1 Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury. 

2 Lee, Archbishop of York. 

3 Cranmer. 



ORDERS IN THE ANGLICAN ORDINAL. 8 1 

Agreement. 
In the eleventh : To the former part of the question the 
Bishop of St. David's doth answer that " bishops have no author- 
ity to make priests without they be authorized of the Christian 
prince." The others, all of them, do say that " they be author- 
ized of God." ... To the second part the answer of the Bishop 
of St. David's is that " laymen have other whiles made priests." 
. . . Drs. Tresham, Crayford, and Cox say that " laymen may 
make priests in time of necessity." 

12. Question. 
Whether in the New Testament be required any consecration 
of a bishop and priest, or only appointing to the office be 
sufficient ? 

Answer. 

In the New Testament, he that is appointed to be a bishop or 
a priest needeth no consecration by the Scripture, for election or 
appointing thereto is sufficient. 1 

Agreement. 
In the twelfth question, where it is asked [as above], the 
Bishop of St. David's saith that " only the appointing ;" Dr. Cox, 
that " only appointing cum manum imftositione is sufficient, 
without consecration." 

Various opinions were given by the others, the 

Romanistic bishops standing by the old beliefs. 

Truly might we say with Stillingfleet, respecting 

Cranmer's views of episcopacy : 

Thus we see by the testimony of him w T ho was instrumental 
in our Reformation that he owned not episcopacy as a distinct 
order from presbytery of divine right, but only as a prudent 
constitution of the civil magistrate for the better governing of 
the Church. 

Are we to imagine, then, that the Ordinal de- 
vised by him and those of like belief would reflect 

1 Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury. 



S2 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

doctrines directly opposite to what they did be- 
lieve? The inevitable conclusion from the evidence 
before us is that in the opinion of the founders of 
the Church of England the Christian ministry did 
not consist of three distinct orders by divine insti- 
tution ; that the Ordinal of Edward VI, compiled 
by these founders and expressing their beliefs for a 
long time held, did not teach or support the theory 
of three such orders ; and that, therefore, the doc- 
trine of the so-called historic episcopate has no 
foundation in the Church of England, and is a later 
invention — but too late, by one hundred and thir- 
teen years, to be of any avail — to supply the rejec- 
tion of it when that Church was established by law. 

From the ritual we may. turn to the public formu- 
laries of faith. If the doctrine has any place in the 
Anglican communion we may hope to find it there. 

The Forty-two Articles of 1553 were the work of 
Cranmer, based on some earlier Articles which he had 
drawn up as early as 1548. 1 Knowing Cranmer's 
views, it is not likely that any statement contrary to 
those beliefs would be found in the Articles which he 
composed. Further, for a true interpretation of 
these Articles it must be remembered that the Re- 
formers on the Continent, both Lutherans and Cal- 
vinists, had a commanding influence with the Re- 
formers in England. The names of Calvin, Peter 

1 Bishop Hooper, Letters ', February 27, 1549, in Original Letters, 
p. 71 ; also Burnet, History of the Reformation, i, 766. 



ORDERS IN THE ANGLICAN ORDINAL. 83 

Martyr, Bullinger, and many divines constantly oc- 
cur in the history of this period in relation to Church 
matters in England. Cranmer's letters to Melanch- 
thon, Calvin, and Bullinger, in which he seeks their 
aid in preparing the Articles, indicate the high es- 
teem in which these Reform leaders were held by the 
primate of the English Church. 1 But there is re- 
quired no labored proof to show that the Reformers 
were opposed to the dogma of three divinely com- 
manded orders. The Lutherans, 2 if they desired, 
could have received episcopal ordination from several 
prelates who were friends of the Reformation, such 
as Polentius, the Bishop of Samland ; P. Speratus, 
of Pomerania ; Matthew, the Bishop of Dantzig ; 
Jagovius, Bishop of Brandenburg ; the Archbishop of 
Salzburg; and Hermann^ the Archbishop of Cologne, 
who was conspicuous for his efforts in aid of Reform, 
The Calvinists could have obtained orders from a 
papal nuncio, Vergerio, Bishop of Capo dTstria, who 
entered the ranks of the Protestants, as did his 
brother, who was also a bishop. Then there were 
the Bishop of Nevers and the Bishop of Troyes, who 
left the Roman Church and became pastors of Re- 
formed churches, the latter submitting to reordina- 

1 Strype, Life of Cranmer, pp. 407-413 ; Nichols, Commentary on 
Book of Common Prayer, Pref., 5 ; Strype, Annals, ii, 91 ; Original 
Letters. 

3 Palmer, On the Church, note by Whittingham, vol. i, p. 355, 
quoted also by Bishop Kip, Double Witness, etc.; but see McClin- 
tock & Strong, in loco. 



84 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

tion. But those who understood the subject of 
succession and the question of orders the best 
seemed to have had the least anxiety about them 
or the validity of nonepiscopal ordination. With 
these Continental Reformers the English Reform- 
ers were in perfect accord. 

In the Forty-two Articles of Cranmer there is not a 
syllable that in the light of their history can be read 
in favor of High Church notions. The Forty-nine 
Articles of 1563 were a revision of these Latin Arti- 
cles of 1553. The revision was mainly the work of 
Archbishop Parker. Among the bishops in the 
Canterbury convocation which adopted these Arti- 
cles, sometimes called the Elizabethan, were Home 
of Winchester, William Barlow, John Scory, Rich- 
ard Cox, Edwin Sandys, Jewel of Salisbury, and 
Parkhurst of Norwich, all of whom were champions 
of the Reformation and desirous of eliminating from 
the Church everything that savored of the old prac- 
tices r even to the wearing of priestly vestments. 
Home, writing to Rudolph Gaulter, July, 1565, 
complains that " it was enjoyned us (who had not 
then any authority either to make laws or repeal 
them) either to wear the caps and surplices or to 
give place to others. We complied with this in- 
junction, lest our enemies should take possession of 
the places deserted by ourselves." Jewel, in his 
letter to Peter Martyr, gives an account of a debate 
to be held before the council, ''wherein nine on our 



ORDERS IN THE ANGLICAN ORDINAL. 85 

side, namely, Scory, Cox, Whitehead, Sandys, Grin- 

dal, Home, Aylmer, a Cambridge man of the name 

of Gheast, and myself," are to be set over against 

some Roman bishops. The second proposition to 

be argued was " that every provincial Church, even 

without the bidding of a General Council, has power 

either to establish or change or abrogate ceremonies 

and ecclesiastical rites, wherever it may seem to 

make for edification." Parkhurst says in an epistle 

to Henry Bullinger, May 21, 1559: 

The pope is again driven from England, to the great regret 
of the bishops and the whole tribe of shavelings. . . . The 
bishops are in future to have no palaces, estates, or country 
seats. The present owners are to enjoy for life those they are 
now in possession of. They are worthy of being suspended, 
not only from their office, but from a halter. 

Cox to Peter Martyr writes : 

By the blessing of God all those heads of religion are re- 
stored to us which we maintained in the time of King Edward. 
. . . The popish priests among us are daily relinquishing their 
ministry, lest, as they say, they should be compelled to give 
their sanction to heresies. 

It is not very likely that these bishops in convoca- 
tion would subscribe to Articles of Religion which 
would stultify their consciences. It must be remem- 
bered also that during this same year 1563, in which 
the convocation of Canterbury met and adopted 
these Articles, the Council of Trent decreed, in op- 
position to the teachings of the Reformers every- 
where, that " whosoever shall affirm that orders, or 
holy ordination, is not truly and properly a sacra- 



86 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

ment instituted by Christ the Lord, ... let him be 
anathema." It also decreed that " whosoever shall 
affirm that the Holy Spirit is not given by ordina- 
tion, and therefore that bishops say in vain, ' Re- 
ceive the Holy Ghost,' or that thereby a character 
is not impressed, or that he who was once a priest 
may become a layman again, let him be anathema." 
Is it probable that the Reformed bishops at Can- 
terbury would adopt any article in their Confession 
of Faith that would be in harmony with the Roman- 
ist view of the Christian ministry as here given, and 
which view is now stoutly maintained by High 
Churchmen ? On the contrary, the twenty-fifth 
article adopted by them, and which settles the whole 
question, expressly declares that orders is not to be 
counted a sacrament of the Gospel, it having " no 
visible sign or ceremony ordained of God." The 
twenty-third article simply affirms that it is not law- 
ful for one to exercise the office of the ministry un- 
less he is lawfully called to the same ; that is, no 
one should obtrude himself without the voice of the 
Church into the ministry of that Church. Bishop 
Burnet, in his comment on this article, says : 

It leaves the matter open and at large for such accidents as 
had happened, 1 and such as might still happen. They who 
drew it had the state of the several Churches before their eyes 
that had been differently reformed ; and although their own had 

1 What becomes of uninterrupted succession when " accidents " do 
happen ? 



ORDERS IN THE ANGLICAN ORDINAL. 87 

been less forced to go out of the beaten path than any other, 
yet they knew that all things among themselves had not gone 
according to those rules that ought to be sacred in regular 
times ; necessity has no law, and is a law to itself. 

This comment of Burnet is both a confession and 
a defense. It shows that in the deliberate judgment 
of him who wrote a history of the Reformation in 
England, and who had access to the records of that 
period, the founders of the Church of England did 
not intend by anything in their formularies of faith 
to teach apostolical succession, but that, on the 
contrary, they placed the authority to preach and 
minister in God's house, not in the hands of bishops 
claiming succession as the warrant for their act, but 
in the hands of those having public authority in the 
Church ; for they knew that accidents had happened 
to the succession, and that the necessity of Christ's 
Church, rather than a humanly devised historic 
episcopate originating in canonical rules, must in 
the nature of things be the fundamental law. 



88 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 



CHAPTER V. 
Teachings of the Reformers. 

ANGLICAN writers endeavor to create the im- 
pression that the doctrine of the historic epis- 
copate now held by the Church of England and the 
Protestant Episcopal Church was also held by the 
English Church from its beginning at the Reforma- 
tion. They also attempt to make it appear that the 
Anglican ministry was established on that doctrine. 
A greater perversion of history it would be difficult 
to find. As well might Roman Catholic writers af- 
firm the Roman Church of the present, with its 
gorgeous ritual, intricate ceremonies, doctrines of 
masses and indulgences, its infallibility, mariolatry, 
and hunger for imperialism, to be the same Church, 
in doctrine, worship, and ceremony, with that com- 
pany of believers which gathered in the tenement 
houses on the banks of the Tiber to hear the Epistle 
of St. Paul to the Romans. The Roman Catholic 
doctrine of orders adopted by High Churchmen was 
utterly discarded by the founders of the English 
Church, and to emphasize their dissent they both 
maintained fraternal relations with, and sought as- 
sistance from, the Protestant, episcopacy-rejecting 
Churches of Germany, France, and Holland. Bishop 



TEACHINGS OF THE REFORMERS. 89 

Jewel, under date of January 8, 1566, writes to Bul- 
linger and Lavater : 

The contest respecting the linen surplice, about which I 
doubt not you have heard, either from our friend Abel or Park- 
hurst, is not yet at rest. That matter still somewhat disturbs 
weak minds. And I wish that all, even the slightest, vestiges 
of popery might be removed from our Churches and, above all, 
from our minds. But the queen at this time is unable to en- 
dure the least alteration in matters of religion. 

Bishop Grindal, under date of August 27, 1566, in a 
letter to the same Henry Bullinger, forever silences 
the claims of those who insist on the episcopate as 
a doctrine of the English Church, if they would 
have any regard for historical facts. He writes : 

We who are now bishops, 1 on our first return, and before we 
entered on our ministry, contended long and earnestly for the 
removal of those things that have occasioned the present dis- 
pute ; but as we were unable to prevail either with the queen 
or the Parliament we judged it best, after a consultation on the 
subject, not to desert our Churches for the sake of a few cere- 
monies, and those not unlawful in themselves, especially since 
the pure doctrine of the Gospel remained in all its integrity and 
freedom ; in which, even to this day [notwithstanding the at- 
tempts of many to the contrary], we most fully agree with your 
Churches and with the Confession 2 you have lately set forth. 

We have seen that the Church of England, neither 
in her Articles of Religion nor in the Ordinal used 
by her authority and that of the crown, made any 
claim to the historic episcopate in the modern sense, 
or considered her bishops to be a distinct order 

1 They were Cox, Home, Parkhurst, Grindal, Sandys, Jewel, and 
Bentham. ' 2 The Helvetic Confession. 



90 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

from presbyters. It has also been seen that Arch- 
bishop Cranmer, the ruling genius in the work of 
Reform under Edward VI,expresslyrepudiated,\vith 
the most eminent bishops and divines of that forma- 
tive period, the dogma of three divinely constituted 
orders. Nor were these leaders alone in their be- 
lief. They had scriptural and historical grounds for 
their faith. In the Middle Ages bishops and canon- 
ists and even a pope, Urban II, had declared that a 
bishop was not superior to a presbyter in the power 
of order. Gieseler, referring to the well-known pas- 
sage in Jerome, says, " It is remarkable how long 
afterward persons maintained this view of the origi- 
nal identity of bishops and presbyters," and cites as 
orthodox authorities Bernoldus (1088), the defender 
of Gregory VII, Pope Urban II, Peter Lombard, 
the Glosses in the Gratian Decretals, Archbishop 
Tudeschus (1428), and the papal canonist, John Paul 
Lancellotus (1563). Not till the Council of Trent 
had decreed in its twenty-third session (July, 1563) 
that bishops were in the place of the apostles — in 
apostolorum locum — and were superior to presbyters, 
was this ancient belief regarded as heretical. 

Therefore, since Anglo-Catholic writers endeavor 
to pervert or to pass lightly over the historic truth 
in their zeal to propagate their doctrine of the his- 
toric episcopate, we shall now set forth in brief the 
teachings of the Reformers, first bishops, and de- 
fenders of the Church of England. 



TEACHINGS OF THE REFORMERS. 9 1 

Tyndale, translator of the English Bible and mar- 
tyr (1536), opposes the use of the word " priest " as 
having no place in the Gospel. He teaches that 
consecration is not necessary, that the laying on of 
hands by the apostles was not after the manner of 
the dumb blessing of Roman bishops ; they sim- 
ply told the appointed ministers their duty and gave 
them a charge and warned them to be faithful in the 
Lord's business, just as temporal officers are chosen 
and their duty read to them and they admitted to 
their office on their promise to faithfully discharge 
their duties. 1 

Lambert (1538), in his trial before Henry VIII, 
in answer to the question, " Dost thou believe or- 
ders to be a sacrament of the Church? " replied that 
in the primitive times there were only two offices 
in the Church of God, bishops and deacons, as the 
Scriptures testify, and as was manifested by Jerome 
in his Commentary when he says that bishops and 
priests were all one. 2 

Bradford, the martyr (1555), in giving an account 
of an interview he had while in prison with an arch- 
deacon who came to examine him, notes his replies 
to certain questions relating to bishops and the suc- 
cession : 

To this I answered that the ministry of God's word and min- 
isters is an essential point ; but to translate this to bishops and 

1 Obedience of a Christian Man. 

2 Acts and Monuments, Fox, vol. v, p. 182. 



92 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

their succession, quoth I, is a plain subtlety ; and therefore, 
quoth I, that it may be plain, I will ask you a question. Tell 
me whether the Scripture know any difference between bishops 
and ministers, which you call priests ? " No," saith he. 1 

In the sixth part of the Catechism by Thomas 
Becon, chaplain to Archbishop Cranmer, is this dia- 
logue : 

Father. — What difference is there between a bishop and a 
spiritual minister? 

Son. — None at all ; their office is one, their authority and 
power are one. And therefore St. Paul calleth the spiritual 
ministers sometimes bishops, sometimes elders, sometimes 
pastors, sometimes teachers, etc. 

Father. — What is " bishop " in English ? 

Son. — An overseer or superintendent, as St. Paul said to the 
elders or bishops of Ephesus : " Take heed unto yourselves, 
and to the flock over whom the Holy Ghost hath made you 
bishops, overseers, superintendents, to rule or feed the congre- 
gation of God which he hath purchased with his blood." 

This same doctrine is taught in the Institutions of 
a Christian Man, published by authority in 1537. 

Hooper, bishop and martyr (1555), in his Godly 

Confession and Protestation of the Christian Faith, 

writes : 

As concerning the ministers of the Church, I believe that the 
Church is bound to no sort of people or any ordinary succession 
of bishops, cardinals, or such like, but unto the word of God only. 
. . . And because the Holy Ghost was in St. Peter at Rome, 
and in many other godly men that have occupied bishoprics and 
dioceses, therefore the same gifts, they say, must needs follow 
in their successors, although, indeed, they are no more like in 
zeal or diligence than Peter to Judas, Balaam to Jeremiah, 
Annas and Caiaphas to John and James. 

1 Life of John Bradford, London, 1855, p. 192. 



TEACHINGS OF THE REFORMERS. 93 

In 1563 Pilkington, the first Protestant Bishop of 
Durham, maintained in his Confutation that the 
privileges and superiorities which bishops have 
above other ministers are rather granted for main- 
taining of better order and quietness in com- 
monwealths than commanded by God in his 
word. 1 

In the year 1562 Bishop Jewel, one of the 
brightest ornaments of the Church of England, is- 
sued his famous Apology of the Church of England, 
which occasioned great controversy with the Ro- 
manists, and was soon followed by the no less valu- 
able Defense of the Apology. So much might be 
quoted from this celebrated bishop, whose work was 
ordered to be chained in the cathedrals where all 
might read it, that it is difficult to know where to 
begin or where to leave off. In his reply to Hard- 
ing, his Roman opponent, he grants superiority , of 
primates over other bishops, but affirms that it was 
by custom rather than by Scripture, and quotes Je- 
rome, as do all the Reformers when writing on the 
constitution of the Christian ministry: 

Let bishops understand that they are above priests rather of 
custom than of any truth or right of Christ's institutions, and 
that they ought to rule the Church altogether. ... St. Au- 
gustine saith, " The office of a bishop is above the office of a 
priest [not by the authority of the Scriptures, but] after the 
manner of honor, which the custom of the Church hath now 
obtained." 

1 Works. Farker Soc. ed. 



94 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

Such, then, was also the opinion of Jewel. Unin- 
terrupted succession as a necessary element of a true 
ministry received from him as little countenance. 
He attacks the claim of the Roman Church to suc- 
cession, and, what should be carefully noted as of 
the utmost significance, affirms that the Church of 
England does not depend on the validity of the or- 
ders of those who, having been ordained in the 
Roman Church, became the founders of the Church 
of England. If none of those ministers, says he, 
" nor of us," were left alive, yet the Church of Eng- 
land would not flee to Louvain for Roman orders, 
for the Church would have power to institute its 
own orders, as " Tertullian saith, 'And we, being lay- 
men, are we not priests? ' " In chapter xi he says : 

But what meant M. Harding to come in here with the differ- 
ence between priests and bishops ? Thinketh he that priests 
and bishops hold only by tradition ? Or is it so horrible a blas- 
phemy as he maketh it to say that by the Scriptures of God a 
bishop and a priest are all one ? 

He then cites the testimony of Chrysostom, Jerome, 
Augustine, Ambrose, and of the Apostle Paul in 
proof of the correctness of his position. 

Nowell's CatccJiism appeared in 1570, and was 
subscribed by all the bishops in the lower convo- 
cation. That work taught the doctrine of the 
Reformers. 

We are now arrived upon a new epoch. In 1572 
arose the controversy over Church polity between 



TEACHINGS OF THE REFORMERS. 95 

the Puritans and the Churchmen which has con- 
tinued to this day. The Puritans, under the inspira- 
tion of their leaders, who had been refugees among 
the Reformed Churches of Geneva, Zurich, and Stras- 
burg, were impatient to model the Church of Eng- 
land in accordance with the severe simplicity of 
those foreign Churches. For stately ceremony, add- 
ing dignity and grace to the services of the sanctu- 
ary, they had as little taste as they had appreciation 
for the glories of Christian art, whether seen in the 
majesty of Gothic shrine, in the beauties of cathe- 
dral window, or in some sweet dream of genius on 
canvas or in stone. To the Puritan of that day, fresh 
from the bare walls of Zurich, the carvings of York 
Minster or the vaulted ceilings of Westminster 
Abbey were but reminders of the heathenish pomp 
and splendor of the scarlet woman that sat on the 
seven hills. But the Church of England was entering 
the dawn of another day. Those who succeeded 
the first bishops and leaders of Reform endeavored 
to maintain a position midway between the excesses 
of Rome on the one hand and the severe plainness 
of frigid Puritanism on the other. The service of 
the mass they discarded as a corruption of the truth ; 
but the noble liturgy, elevating in thought, beau- 
tiful in expression, and sacred by the memories of 
a thousand years, they retained with intelligent de- 
votion. Episcopacy, as a divinely constituted insti- 
tution superior to presbytery, they rejected as un- 



g6 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

scriptural; but with balanced judgment they held 
and reverenced the office which was the symbol 
of unity, the seat of danger and of service, as 
well as the throne of honor in the Christian 
Church when the Pantheon was yet filled with 
the gods of the empire, and the followers of 
Christ, under Roman law, plucked the purple 
flower of martyrdom. 

The occasion of the controversy was the publi- 
cation of a Puritan work, Admonition to Parlia- 
ment, which was followed the same year by A Sec- 
ond Admonition. To this Archbishop Whitgift, 
" a sage and prudent man," says Stillingfleet, " whom 
we cannot suppose either ignorant of the sense of 
the Church of England or afraid or unwilling to de- 
fend it," made reply. Like other great teachers of 
the Church, he defends episcopacy, not on the ground 
of divine right, but solely on the plea of expediency. 
His answer, which was approved by Archbishop 
Parker, Bishop Cox, and others, was considered, says 
Strype, one of the public books of the Church of 
England, and was held in as high esteem as Jewel's 
Apology and Defense. Bishop Whitgift denies the 
conferring of the Holy Ghost in ordination by im- 
position of hands; agrees with Calvin in his exposi- 
tion of i Tim. iii and 2 Tim. i ; approves of episco- 
pacy for England, but does not condemn other 
Churches for the lack of it. 1 

1 Answer to the Admonition, Tract iii, chap. iv. 



TEACHINGS OF THE REFORMERS. 97 

Fulke, master of Pembroke College, in his spirited 
reply to Stapleton, the Romanist, said : 

The third demand is that we must show a succession from 
the apostles, as the Scripture witnesseth the Church to have 
and the ancient fathers exacted of the heretics. The Scripture 
requireth no succession of names, persons, or places, but of faith 
and doctrine ; and that we prove when we approve our faith 
and doctrine by the doctrine of the apostles. 

Bancroft's sermon at St. Paul's Cross (1588) 
brought out a reply from Dr. Rainoldes of Oxford, 
who was regarded as the most learned man of his 
time. Bancroft had asserted that " the superiority 
of bishops over the clergy is God's ordinance." Rai- 
noldes denies the truthfulness of the statement on the 
authority of Holy Scripture, and quotes an impos- 
ing array of eminent writers of antiquity, and in ad- 
dition, which establishes the position taken at the 
beginning of this chapter, cites, as in harmony with 
the opinion of Jerome and the authorities referred 
to by Jewel, the founders, bishops, and doctors of 
divinity of the Church of England. His comprehen- 
sive summary is conclusive : 

Besides, all that have labored in reforming the Church for five 
hundred years have taught that all pastors, be they entitled 
bishops or priests, have equal authority and power by God's 
word; as, first, the Waldensians ; next, Marsilius Patavinus ; 
then Wyclif and his scholars ; afterward, Huss and the Huss- 
ites ; and, last of all, Luther, Calvin, Brentius, Bullinger, and 
Musculus. Among ourselves we have bishops, the queen's 
professors of divinity in our universities (Drs. Humphrey and 
White), and other learned men consenting herein, as Bradford, 
Lambert, Jewel, Pilkington, Humphrey, Fulke, etc. But what 



98 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

do I speak of particular persons ? It is the common judgment 
of the Reformed Churches of Helvetia, Savoy, France, Scotland, 
Germany, Hungary, Poland, the Low Countries, and our own. 
I hope Dr. Bancroft will not say that all these have approved 
that for sound doctrine which was condemned by the general 
consent of the whole Church for heresy in a most flourishing 
time. I hope he will acknowledge that he was overseen when 
he avouched fae superiority which bishops have among us over 
the clergy to be by God's ordinance. 

Saravia, the learned friend of Hooker, is held by 
Anglican writers to have asserted the divine right 
of bishops. But he also maintained that presbyters 
could ordain bishops, for the reason that in the low- 
est grade, if bishops are taken away, the whole power 
of the keys resides ; and that of the ministers who 
gathered at Poissy some were ordained by bish- 
ops of the Roman Church, others by the Reformed 
Church, " yet none of them ought to have been 
ashamed of his ordination." 

In 1593 Hooker's monumental work, Of the Laws 
of Ecclesiastical Polity, appeared. It is unsatisfac- 
tory to those whose cause it was intended to sup- 
port, for, although Hooker defends episcopacy as a 
divine institution, which may be admitted in a very 
modified sense, he nevertheless concedes that episco- 
pal ordination is not at all times necessary. Thus 
he writes : 

Now, whereas hereupon some do infer that no ordination 
can stand, but only such as is made by bishops which have 
their ordination likewise by other bishops before them, till we 
come to the very apostles of Christ themselves, ... to this we 



TEACHINGS OF THE REFORMERS. 99 

answer that there may be sometimes very just and sufficient 
reason to allow ordination made without a bishop. 

Field's treatise Of the Church (1606), a work 
highly esteemed by divines of the English Church, 
appeared in the Roman controversy. On the 
vital question of the power of order he agrees 
with Hooker. To the question, whether the power 
of order be so essentially annexed to the order of 
bishops that none but bishops may in any case or- 
dain, he replies : 

The power of ecclesiastical or sacred order, that is, the power 
and authority to intermeddle with things pertaining to the serv- 
ice of God, ... is equal and the same in all those whom we 
call presbyters. . . . Only for order sake and the preserva- 
tion of peace there is a limitation of the use and the exer- 
cise of the same ; . . . whereby it is most evident that that 
wherein a bishop excelleth a presbyter is not a distinct power 
of order, but an eminence and dignity only, specially yielded to 
one above all the rest of the same rank for order sake and to pre- 
serve the unity and peace of the Church. 1 

Mason, whose Vindicice Ecclesice Anglicana (161 3) 
serves as the armory whence the advocates of 
the historic episcopate draw their weapons, was a 
stout defender of the legitimacy of English episco- 
pacy, but he was too well versed in the doctrines of 
the reformers, founders, and bishops of his Church, 
and in the opinions of the learned men of his time, 
to defend a doctrine at variance with Scripture, his- 
tory, and the consensus of the Protestant world. 
He admits that the line of succession was inter- 

1 Book iii, chap, xxxix, " Of Succession," etc. 



IOO THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

rupted in the Churches of Constantinople and of 
Alexandria, and also in the Church of Rome ; that 
succession without true doctrine is no true succes- 
sion ; that no form of government by God's com- 
mandment is binding universally, perpetually, un- 
changeably, on all Churches ; and that, " seeing a 
presbyter is equal to a bishop in the power of 
order, he hath equally intrinsical power to give 
orders." 

Dr. Whitaker, who, like Whitgift, certainly knew 
the sense of the Church of England, says : 

I confess that there was originally no difference between a 
bishop and a presbyter. Luther and the other heroes of the 
Reformation were presbyters, even according to the ordination 
of the Romish Church, and therefore they were jure divino 
bishops. Consequently whatever belongs to bishops belongs, 
jure divino, to themselves. As for bishops being afterward 
placed over presbyters, that was a human arrangement for the 
removal of schisms, as the historians of the times testify. 1 

To these illustrious names the historian of Eng- 
lish episcopacy might add, almost without leaving 
the sixteenth century, such authorities as Sutcliffe, 
Parker, Crakanthrop, Rogers, Willet, Bishops 
Bridges, Downham, Morton, Andrewes, Hall, Da- 
venant, Stillingfleet, Archbishop Ussher, and many 
others, who all agree that the historic episcopate 
now advocated with such zeal was not at any time 
up to the year 1662 a doctrine of the Church of 
England. Whether the teachings and practice of 

1 Works, vol. i, p. 509, fol., Geneva, 1610. 



TEACHINGS OF THE REFORMERS. IOI 

those who founded that Church and died for it, and 
the opinions of those who governed it and defended 
it against Romanism and Puritanism for one hun- 
dred and thirteen years — during which period there 
was no voice raised among them questioning those 
teachings — whether the authoritative declarations 
of these bishops and doctors are to be accepted as ex- 
pressing the sense of the Church of England, rather 
than the borrowed opinions of a new school of di- 
vines who teach the opposite of these Reformers, we 
may confidently leave to the unbiased judgment of 
common sense. 

But not only did the Reformers of the Anglican 
Church defend the doctrine of orders as above given 
— the Church practiced their principles. The Church 
of England was in fellowship and agreement in doc- 
trine with the Reformed Churches on the Continent, 
and recognized the nonepiscopal orders of those 
Churches as valid. 

In 1873, during a meeting of the Evangelical Al- 
liance in New York, the Dean of Canterbury (Dr. 
R. Payne Smith) and Dr. Cummins, assistant 
bishop of the Protestant Episcopal diocese of Ken- 
tucky, partook of the Lord's Supper in a Presbyte- 
rian church. This fraternal act gave such offense to 
High Churchmen that Bishop Cummins was forced 
to resign his office. The organization of a new de- 
nomination, the Reformed Episcopal Church,was the 
result. But in 161 8, at the Synod of Dort, Bishop 



102 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

Carleton, Drs. Davenant, Ward, and Hall, all eminent 
men, with other deputies of the Church of England, 
received the holy communion from the hands of 
Dr. Bogermann, the Presbyterian moderator of the 
assembly ; and Dr. Hall, afterward the Bishop of 
Norwich, wrote, " There is no place on earth like 
the Synod of Dort, no place where I should like so 
much to dwell." The difference between these two 
events of 1618 and 1873 marks the difference be- 
tween the teachings and practice of the Church of 
England in her purest days and the Church of Eng- 
land as she now is, under the influence of the school 
of Laud. 

Cranmer invited the Reformers Martin Bucer, 
Peter Martyr, Tremellius, Fagius, Melanchthon, and 
others to teach at Oxford and Cambridge. 1 The 
Articles of Religion which were put forth from time 
to time were based for the most part on the Confes- 
sions of the Reformed Churches. 2 King Edward 
VI in 1550 granted a charter to German refugees 
in London under John a. Lasco allowing them full 
privileges, not on the principle of toleration, but in 
order that, as the record reads, " a Church instructed 
in truly Christian and apostolical opinions and rites, 
and grown up under holy ministers, might be pre- 
served." 3 Queen Elizabeth sent a representative to 

1 Arch. Parker, Antiq. Britan., p. 580. 

2 Hardwick, History of the Thirty-nine Articles ; Burnet, Thirty- 
nine Articles. 3 Burnet, Records, No. 51, part ii, book i. 



TEACHINGS OF THE REFORMERS. IO3 

a meeting of the Reformed Churches at Frankfort. 1 

In 1580, by order of Elizabeth, public prayers were 

offered for these Churches: "And herein, good 

Lord, by special name we beseech thee for the 

Churches of France, Flanders, and for such other 

places," etc. In the u Injunctions Given by the 

Queen's Majesty as well to the Clergy as to the 

Laity of this Realm" (1559) prayer was enjoined 

" for Christ's holy Catholic Church, that is, for the 

whole congregation of Christian people " dispersed 

throughout the world. The thirty-ninth canon of 

the Church of England (A. D. 1603) declares : 

So far was it from the purpose of the Church of England 
to forsake and reject the Churches of Italy, France, Spain, Ger- 
many, or any such like Churches, in all things which they held 
and practiced that (as the apology of the Church of England 
confesses) it doth with reverence retain those ceremonies 
which do neither endanger the Church of God nor offend the 
minds of men. 

Passing from these public acts to the averments 
of ecclesiastical authorities, we find Archbishop Par- 
ker approving the Helvetic Confession, and Rog- 
ers, chaplain to Archbishop Bancroft, citing the con- 
fessions of the continental Churches in proof of the 
theological soundness of the English articles. The 
Zurich Letters on every page bear witness to the 
close relation that existed between the Church of 
England and the nonepiscopal communions beyond 
the sea. " We have exhibited to the queen," writes 

1 See Blondel, Actes Authentiques, ed. 1605, p. 61. 



104 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

Jewel to Peter Martyr, April 28, 1559, "all our arti- 
cles of religion and doctrine, and have not departed 
in the slightest degree from the Confession of 
Zurich." Again, on February 7, 1562, he writes: 

But, now that the full light of the Gospel has shone forth, the 
very vestiges of error must as far as possible be removed, to- 
gether with the rubbish, and, as the saying is, "with the very 
dust. And I wish we could effect this in respect to that linen 
surplice ; for, as to matters of doctrine, we have pared every- 
thing away to the very quick, and do not differ from your doc- 
trine by a nail's breadth. 

Bishop Home writes to Henry Bullinger, Decem- 
ber 13, 1563: 

We have throughout England the same ecclesiastical doc- 
trine as yourselves ; as to rites and ceremonies [the original 
manuscript is here illegible], nor, as the people are led to be- 
lieve, do we at all differ in our estimation of them. 

Richard Cox to W. Weidner, May 20, 1559: 

Meanwhile we, the little flock who for these last five years, by 
the blessing of God, have been hidden among you in Germany, 
are thundering forth in our pulpits, and especially before our 
Queen Elizabeth, that the Roman pontiff is truly Antichrist, 
and that traditions are for the most part mere blasphemies. 

Bishop Grindal, writing to Bullinger, August 27, 

1566, says: 

We must fully agree with your Churches and with the confes- 
sion you have lately set forth. 

Bishop Hall, in his Peacemaker, exclaims : 

Blessed be God, there is no difference in any essential matter 
between the Church of England and her sisters of the Refor- 
mation. 1 

1 Works, vol. iii, p. 560. 



TEACHINGS OF THE REFORMERS. 105 

To this testimony, adduced from the writings of 
those who were building the Anglican structure, may- 
be added that of Bancroft, Saravia, Hooker, Field, 
Andrewes, Ussher, indeed, of all the leading divines 
and prelates of that Church, up to the degenerate 
period of the Restoration. 

Finally, the founders of the English Church not 
only rejected the doctrine of three divinely instituted 
orders, and recognized all other Churches of the 
Reformation as true Churches of Christ, but, as is in- 
volved in that fellowship, they and the Church of 
England by law admitted the validity of the minis- 
terial orders in those Churches. This is conceded 
by candid writers of the High Church party, as, for 
example, Keble, in his Preface to Hooker's works. 
By the act 13 Elizabeth, says Strype, "the ordina- 
tions of the foreign Reformed Churches were made 
valid, and those that had no other orders were made 
of the same capacity with others to enjoy any place 
within England, merely on their subscribing the ar- 
ticles." Burnet tells us that up to the year 1662 
those who entered the Church of England from the 
foreign Churches were not required to be reordained. 
Bishop Fleetwood corroborates the same by say- 
ing that many ministers came from the Churches of 
Scotland, France, and the Netherlands who were 
ordained by presbyters only, and not bishops, and 
were placed in charge of churches without reordina- 
tion, they simply subscribing to the Articles. Hal- 



106 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

lam, in his Constitutional History of England, is also 
in evidence: 

It had not been unusual from the beginning of the Reformation 
to admit ministers ordained in foreign Churches to benefices in 
England ; no reordination had ever been practiced with respect 
to those who had received the imposition of hands in a regular 
Church ; and hence it appears that the Church of England, what- 
ever tenet might latterly have been broached in controversy, 
did not consider the ordinations of presbyters invalid. 

See also Lathbury, History of the English Episco- 
pacy,^. 19, 63, 170; Principal Tulloch, in Contem- 
porary Review, December, 1874; Grub, Ecclesiastical 
History of Scotland ; Strype, Annals of the Refor- 
mation, ii, 522, and Life of Grindal, 271 ; Collier, Ec- 
clesiastical History, ii, 594; Neal, History of the Puri- 
tans, i, 258; Cosin, Letter to M. Cor del ; Judgment 
of the Archbishop of Armagh on Certain Points, 113; 
Brandt, History of the Reformation, iii, 4-6 ; Cra- 
kanthorp, Defensio Ecclesice Aug., 254. 



IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. IO7 



CHAPTER VI. 

Historic Episcopate in the Church of England a 
Nullity* 

IT is evident from a study of the preceding chap- 
ters that the possession of the historic episcopate 
by the Church of England and the Protestant 
Episcopal Church is, on any rational principle, ut- 
terly improbable, if not impossible. No one of all 
the learned bishops and divines of that Church dur- 
ing the long period of one hundred and thirteen 
years through which we have gone seems to have 
been aware of its existence in that Church, or to 
have felt the need of it, or to have considered it as 
of any special value in any Church that possessed it 
or desired it. But, on the contrary, the sturdiest pil- 
lars of the Anglican Church both challenged the re- 
ality of the fact and rejected its principles. This, 
we think, has been sufficiently proved. It is our 
purpose now to go farther, and to demonstrate that 
the doctrine of the historic episcopate, or apostol- 
ical succession, could not by any possibility be held 
by any Church adopting the doctrines of the Refor- 
mation, and that, therefore, the historic episcopate 
is not now, and never was, in the possession of the 
Protestant Church of England. 



108 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

Now, it is conceded by Anglicans that the Roman 
Church possesses the succession, or historic episco- 
pate. The evangelical Churches of Christendom 
make no such admission, for the fact has never yet 
been proved ; but High Church advocates are com- 
pelled to admit it by the nature of their position, 
since from Roman sources Anglican orders were 
originally derived. To deny succession, then, to the 
Church of Rome would be to deny it to the Church 
of England. Without agreeing to this concession 
of Anglicans, but assuming that such is the histor- 
ical fact, we inquire, What is this historic episco- 
pate, or apostolical succession, held by the Roman 
communion and which Anglicans claim was trans- 
mitted to the Church of England ? 

It is to be presumed that the Roman Church 
knows its own doctrine ; this doctrine, then, as main- 
tained by that Church is as follows : No one can 
lawfully assume the office of an ambassador unless 
he is commissioned by lawful authority. As in the 
old dispensation, so in the new, no man taketh to 
himself the office of a minister of God unless he be 
called as was Aaron. The high priest of our pro- 
fession, Jesus Christ, did not enter upon his minis- 
try until he was commissioned by the Voice from 
heaven and received the anointing of the Holy 
Ghost. Likewise, when he appointed his apostles 
to be ministers of grace he gave them formal au- 
thority to act in his name. " As my Father hath 



IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. IO9 

sent me, even so send I you." 1 Clothed with this 
authority from Christ himself which they alone 
possessed, the apostles went forth into the world 
proclaiming the Gospel and organizing churches or 
Christian societies. When in the run of time the 
number of churches multiplied and personal super- 
vision by the apostles was impossible, they ap- 
pointed pastors over these churches, endowing them 
with authority and power to exercise the office of 
the ministry of reconciliation in the Church of God. 
These pastors, thus commissioned and endowed, 
transmitted to their successors in office the grace 
and authority they had received from the apostles ; 
and these in turn transmitted the same sacerdotal 
gifts to their successors, and so on, in uninterrupted 
succession to the present, each in the series receiv- 
ing in full the power of order transmitted from the 
apostles and originally given by Christ himself. 

This power of order consists of order and jurisdic- 
tion. By order is signified the power to offer sacri- 
fice ; by jurisdiction, the authority to govern. The 
Roman Church teaches that this priesthood was in- 
stituted by the Lord our Saviour, and that to his 
apostles and their successors this power was given 
to consecrate, offer, and minister his body and blood 
and to remit and retain sins. 2 This priesthood was 
established at the Last Supper, 3 and the power of 

1 John xx, 21. 2 Concil. Trtd., sess. xxxi, c. i. 

3 Coruil. Trid., sess. xxii, c. i. 
8 



1 10 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

jurisdiction was given when Jesus breathed on his 
disciples, saying, ''Receive ye the Holy Ghost: 
whosesoever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto 
them ; whosesoever sins ye retain, they are re- 
tained/' 1 The means by which this power is trans- 
mitted is the sacrament of holy orders administered 
by a bishop. In this sacrament the Holy Ghost is 
received, and an indelible character is thereby im- 
pressed on the soul of the ordained. " Whosoever 
shall affirm that the Holy Spirit is not given in 
ordination, and that, therefore, bishops say in vain, 
' Receive the Holy Ghost,' or that thereby a char- 
acter is not impressed, ... let him be anathema." a 
Such is the doctrine of apostolic succession held 
by the Church of Rome. The pith of it is the trans- 
mission of sacerdotal powers, the power to offer the 
eucharist and to forgive sins. This is the mystical 
grace resulting from the gift of the Holy Ghost in 
the imposition of hands by a bishop — the power to 
change bread and wine into the real body and blood 
of our Lord Jesus Christ. This essential element 
oPthe doctrine of apostolical succession is conven- 
iently passed over by those who, desirous of succes- 
sion, but wishing to avoid the logical consequences 
involved, substitute chronology for theology. The 
material, mechanical, tactual succession of persons 
in unbroken series, upon which so many writers 

1 Concil. Trid., sess. xiv, c. i. 
9 Concil. Trid. , sess. xxxii, c. iv. 



IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. Ill 

place emphasis, and as many more labor unneces- 
sarily to disprove, is nothing more than the mere 
outward covering, the shell, so to speak ; the real 
thing itself being the mystical grace of priesthood, 
without which tactual succession is an empty and 
insignificant trifle, and can be of important interest 
only to those who endeavor to substitute another 
and different kind of succession from that which 
is considered as the only real succession by that 
Church which Anglicans affirm always has been, and 
is now, in possession of the succession derived from 
the apostles, but which succession, according to 
Cardinal Newman, depends on the " immediate, 
present, living authority " of that Church, and " not 
on any historical antiquarian research or genealog- 
ical table/' » 

Let it be granted, then, that the founders of the 
English Episcopal Church — Cranmer, Ridley, Bar- 
low, Parker, Hodgkins — received this ordination and 
this succession when they were ordained priests in 
the Church of Rome. But did they transmit this 
ordination, or any element of this succession, to those 
whom they ordained when founding the Church of 
England? Did they intend to do so ? Did they 
have authority to do so? Did they have power in 
themselves to do so? Herein lies the heart of the 
whole question, and it cannot be passed over; for 
nothing can be plainer than the clear fact that, if 

1 Essays, vol. ii, p. 87. 



112 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

these questions cannot be answered in the affirma- 
tive, then apostolical succession never did belong to 
the Church of England, and certainly is not to be 
found there now. 

Now, it is a fundamental and universally admitted 
principle that no one who withdraws from, or is ex- 
communicated by, a Church can exercise in the 
name, or by the authority, of that Church any 
right, power, privilege, or authority conferred 
upon him while he was in that Church. Under 
such circumstances he is to that Church as if he 
had never existed. He is deprived of all relation 
and the use of every ecclesiastical power, for that 
which has the power to give has the power to 
take away. Illustrations of this principle may be 
found in every age of the Church. The Arian, 
Eutychian, and Donatist bishops were all validly 
consecrated ; but when they rebelled against the 
authority which commissioned them and gave 
them jurisdiction all their acts were declared null 
and void. They were no longer in the line of 
succession and could not transmit what they did 
not possess. Cyprian, whose Church system is 
so much eulogized by Anglican and Romanist^ 
in an epistle to Stephen, Bishop of Rome, in 
which he and other North African bishops ex- 
press their disciplinary views concerning certain 
presbyters who had returned from error to the 
bosom of the Church, writes : 



IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. I 1 3 

We tell you farther, dear brother, by common consent and 
authority, that if any presbyters or deacons, who have either 
been ordained before in the Catholic Church and after- 
ward turned traitors and rebels against the Church, or have 
been promoted by a profane ordination, in a state of heresy, 
by false bishops and antichrists, contrary to our Lord's insti- 
tution — that such, if they return to the Church, shall only be 
admitted to lay communion. 

But we need not refer to ancient history for exam- 
ples. This principle is recognized and acted upon 
by the Church of England and the Protestant Epis- 
copal Church. In 1873, as we have seen, Bishop 
Cummins withdrew from the Protestant Episcopal 
Church, giving as his reason the progress of ritual- 
ism in that denomination. With others of like be- 
lief he organized the Reformed Episcopal Church. 
The bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church 
met and formally deposed him from his office. But 
the Reformed Church prospered. Bishops were or- 
dained for England, and houses of worship were 
opened there. The Anglican bishops of Chichester 
and of St. Albans warned their flocks with true apos- 
tolic zeal against these new bishops, as intruders in 
the guise of real bishops, and denied that they had 
any jurisdiction. The Bishop of St. Albans in a 
charge delivered to his clergy declared the orders 
of Dr. Gregg, a bishop of the new Church, to be also 
invalid. The correspondence resulting is important 
in many ways. 1 

1 See Methodist Quarterly Review, October, 1S70, p. 735. 



114 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

To the charge of the Anglican prelate Dr. Gregg 
replied : 

My Lord : In your charge delivered on Tuesday you not 
only questioned the validity of my consecration as derived from 
a deposed bishop of the American Episcopal Church, but you 
failed to state the real reason for the formation of the Re- 
formed Episcopal Church in this country, namely, the extreme 
sacerdotalism which almost everywhere prevails and will ruin 
the Church of England. The bishop through whom the his- 
torical succession reached me had his consecration directly 
through the Anglican communion, and had not been deposed 
when the succession was transmitted through him to the three 
bishops by whom I was validly and canonically consecrated. 
... I am, etc. 

To this the Bishop of St. Albans replied : 

Reverend Sir: You assert that the bishop through whom 
the historical succession reached you had his consecration 
directly through the Anglican communion, and had not been 
deposed when the succession was transmitted. I presume that 
the bishop to whom you refer was Dr. Cummins. My state- 
ment was that this bishop, though not yet formally deposed, 
lay under prohibition from performing any episcopal act, which 
prohibition was publically notified December i, 1873, J ust a 
fortnight before he proceeded to consecrate that bishop through 
whom, as you say, you received the historical succession. I 
have authority to state that none of the American bishops have 
ever recognized the act of pretended consecration performed 
by Dr. Cummins or any act growing out of it. I am, etc. 

Here we see the application of the law. Although 
Bishop Cummins was himself validly and canonically 
ordained, and did receive, we will assume, what was 
called the succession, nevertheless, when he seceded 
from his Church he was immediately and de facto pro- 
hibited from the exercise of episcopal function ; the 



IN THE CPiURCH OF ENGLAND. 115 

succession was withdrawn by the authority that gave 
it; his consecrations were " pretended " consecrations ; 
he was without mission or jurisdiction ; and all his 
acts were null and void. 

But if the Protestant Episcopal Church could thus 
annihilate in the Rev. Dr. Cummins all authority 
and power formerly belonging to him as bishop in 
that Church, and if as a result all consecrations by 
him were pretended consecrations, conveying no 
power or grace whatever, and all possibility of trans- 
mitting the historic episcopate ceased in him, how 
was it possible for the succession ever to have come 
to the Protestant Episcopal Church itself? By what 
method of logic, by what course of reasoning, can a 
reflecting mind make it appear that this succession 
or episcopate ever reached the Church of England ? 
By whom was it transmitted, and by whose author- 
ity ? The founders of the English Church who gave 
the first ministry to that Church v/ere deposed and 
excommunicated by the Church of Rome, of which 
they were originally ministers. All sacerdotal power 
and ecclesiastical authority of every character was 
withdrawn from them by the same power that first 
conferred it, and therefore, as a necessary conse- 
quence, the transmission of that power or authority 
and the continuity of the succession were de facto im- 
possible. Neither Cranmer, nor Ridley, nor Barlow, 
nor any of the Reformers could transmit or give to 
others what he himself did not have. What value, 



Il6 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

then, on Anglican principles of succession, had the 
acts of the founders of the Anglican Church, and 
what other than a "pretended" consecration was 
the consecration of Matthew Parker, the corner 
stone of the Anglican hierarchy ? These Reformers 
could claim no authority from the Church they had 
denounced, from which they had withdrawn, and 
which had excommunicated them. From God di- 
rectly they might indeed claim authority, as did the 
apostle Paul, and from God they should show their 
credentials, as we believe they did ; or they might 
claim it from the Church which they had newly organ- 
ized, though as a matter of fact the Church was not 
consulted. But from the Church in which they were 
ordained and from which they had separated they 
could claim no authority, nor did they possess any 
authority or power, any more than Dr. Cummins 
did when deposed by the Protestant Episcopal 
Church ; for the power that gave had the power to 
take away. 

Again, not only did that Church which Anglicans 
concede to be in possession of the succession most 
solemnly, and with all the spiritual terrors then in- 
voked by the mighty curse of Rome, stop the flow 
of mystic grace constituting the essence of succes- 
sion, but these Reformers, the founders of the Angli- 
can Church, never claimed succession, or that they 
had transmitted or could transmit it to others whom 
they ordained. It is impossible to think of these 



IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. WJ 

preachers of a pure Gospel transmitting Roman 
succession. The indelible character, character in- 
delebilis, which Rome taught was involved in the 
very nature of ordination, was spoken of with un- 
measured contempt. Calvin, whose influence on 
English thought was most powerful, wrote of it as 
a fable invented in the schools of ignorant monks. 
Dr. Fulke, the master of Pembroke College, in his 
controversy with a Romanist affirmed : 

There is no evidence at all that the order of priesthood is a 
sacrament or giveth grace. 

In another work he says: 

You are most deceived if you [the Catholics] think we es- 
teem your offices of bishops, priests, deacons, any better than 
laymen. Again, with all our hearts we defy, abhor, detest, and 
spit at your stinking, greasy, antichristian orders. 1 

Bishop Jewel, writing to Simler, November, 1559, 

says : 

As to your expressing your hopes that our bishops will be in- 
augurated 2 without any superstitious and offensive ceremonies, 
you mean, Isuppose, without oil, without the chrism, without the 
tonsure. And you are not mistaken ; for the sink would in- 
deed have been emptied to no purpose if we had suffered those 
dregs to settle at the bottom. These oily, shaven, portly hypo- 
crites we have sent back to Rome, from whence we first im- 
ported them ; for we require our bishops to be pastors, labor- 
ers, and watchmen. 

1 The Retention. 

2 The translator of the Zurich Letters has rendered Jewel's word 
inaugurarihy " consecrated," which is scarcely defensible. Jewel's 
term throws a flood of light on Parker's consecration. Consecration 
is not inauguration in ecclesiastical terminology. 



Il8 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

"I would not have you think," wrote Bishop 
Whitaker, who knew the sense of the Reformers, 
"that we make such reckoning of your orders as to 
hold our own vocation unlawful without them. And 
therefore keep your orders to yourselves." 

Calf hill, Bishop-elect of Worcester, in his Answer 
to the Treatise of the Cross, says ; 

For the character indelebilis," the mark immovable," is thereby 
given. Yet there is a way to have it out well enough — to rub 
them well favorably with salt and ashes, or, if that will not serve, 
with a little soap. 

Can High Church writers hope to make intelligent 
readers believe that these men had any such rever- 
ence for, or idea of, apostolical succession in the 
Roman Church as they themselves assiduously culti- 
vate ? Is it possible to believe that these men when 
laying the foundations of the English Church had the 
remotest thought, the dimmest conception, that 
they were dependent on the Roman Church for their 
episcopal orders, and that they were transmitting 
the same succession which they had by virtue of 
their orders received from that Church ? 

If anything is certain in English history it is that 
the Reformers broke with Rome. They rejected 
all the doctrinal accretions of the centuries and went 
back by divine right to the pure word of God ; they 
rejected the mass, the priesthood which rested on 
the mass, and therefore rejected all idea of the re- 
ality of that imaginary, mystical power conferred in 



IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. I 1 9 

ordination and without which, according to Roman 
teaching, there is no real ordination. The rejec- 
tion of the mass and of all the teachings con- 
nected with it carried with it the rejection of the 
whole doctrine of apostolical succession ; for it was 
that kind of succession, the essence of which is the 
mystic grace of priesthood, and not any other kind, 
which they received, if they obtained any, from that 
Church. It was that kind only which she had taught, 
that kind only which she possessed or of which she 
had any knowledge, and that kind only which she 
had to give. The apostolic Church or the Church 
of the Nicene period might have had different views 
of the succession and of the Christian ministry; so 
also might the Church of the Donatists or of the 
Novatians or of the Greeks ; but it was from none 
of these Churches that the Reformers received their 
ordination or succession, but from the Church of 
Rome, which they afterward denounced as anti- 
christ. The succession which that Church held and 
transmitted to her bishops carried with it, like a 
river which holds in solution the soil of the country 
through which it flows, the doctrines of Rome ; but 
these doctrines and this succession they discarded, 
and, fallingback on the primal truth that they were 
called of God * to preach his word, they sought to 
establish a Church on New Testament principles. 

1 The Ordinal of Edward VI requires an inward call to the 
ministry. 



120 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

This is what they themselves claimed, and not what 
modern High Church advocates claim for them. 

Now, to imagine, as some would have us, that by 
some unknown method, by some metaphysical proc- 
ess, these Reformers eliminated the Roman character 
from the succession they received, and yet retained 
that succession, is scarcely worthy of serious thought. 
For the doctrine, thus denuded of its sacerdotal qual- 
ity, thus deprived of the mystical grace in which its 
real value resides, is no longer the peculiar possession 
of any Church, but belongs to all. But in doing 
this the Reformers would be manufacturing a new 
succession, a kind which the Roman Church, which 
Anglicans assert has the succession, knew not nor 
possessed, and which was unknown to Christendom. 
Not more worthy of consideration is that stretch of 
the imagination which we are invited to accept, as 
if it was real and not a mere figment of the fancy, 
that the founders of the English episcopacy and min- 
istry unlinked themselves from the corrupt succes- 
sion of the sixteenth century and, going back fifteen 
hundred years, joined themselves to the Church of 
the apostolic or subapostolic age. To whom did 
they go ? Who rose from the dead and placed his 
hands upon them ? The attempt to think the re- 
ality exposes the absurdity of the idea. 

The simple truth, lucid as a sunbeam, is that the 
succession which these godly Reformers were in and 
which they originally received was a true succession 






IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 121 

coming down from Christ and his apostles, or it was 
not. If it was, then in rejecting it and all that it 
implied and which gave it a distinctive character, 
and in setting up instead of it a substitute of their 
own making, they did not possess true apostolical 
succession when founding the Church of England ; 
and neither that Church nor its offshoot, the Prot- 
estant Episcopal Church, has that succession now. 
On the other hand, if the succession they were in 
and received was not true, then they did not receive 
real, genuine succession, nor did they transmit it 
to others ; whence it follows, in either case, that the 
doctrine of apostolic succession, or the historic epis- 
copate, so loudly claimed by Anglican bishops, and 
so little understood, it would seem, by Anglican 
writers, never did exist in the Church of England es- 
tablished by law. 

Francis Mason endeavored with much ingenuity 
to preserve succession while denying the mystical 
grace conferred, and his argument has become the 
model on which later efforts of that kind are formed. 
That the nature of such attempts may be under- 
stood we present a specimen of Mason's reasoning, 
which is correct from the standpoint of evangelical 
principles, but, as will be seen, is utterly destructive 
to Anglican pretensions. The argument is in the 
form of a dialogue. Philodox, a Romanist, says : 

We have a Church and priesthood which derive their original 
from Christ ; you can go no farther than Cranmer. Now, if 



122 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

this were put to King Ptolemy or any other indifferent man, 
would he not give judgment for us against you ? 

To this Mason answers: 

No ; neither for your priesthood nor for your Church ; not 
for the first, because the priesthood which the apostles con- 
ferred was only a power to minister the word and sacraments, 
which, being conveyed to posterity successively by ordination, is 
found at this day in some sort in the Church of Rome, in regard 
whereof you may be said to succeed the apostles, and Cranmer 
you, and we Cranmer, and consequently we also in this succeed 
the apostles as well as you. But besides this, which is the or- 
dinance of God, you have added another thing, the imagination 
of your own brain, which you esteem the principal function of 
priesthood, to wit, a power to offer a propitiatory sacrifice for 
the quick and the dead. Now, how is it possible that in this 
you should succeed the apostles, seeing (as in due time shall be 
proved) they neither were such priests themselves nor ever by 
ordination delivered any such priesthood? 

Thus, when brought to face the real question, does 
one of the ablest defenders of the English episco- 
pacy surrender the whole High Church position. 
For, without again showing that this is substituting 
another succession, another ordination, for that which 
the Reformers received, what succession does Mason 
claim for the Church of England that does not 
equally belong to other Protestant Churches ? If 
Cranmer, on Mason's reasoning, was in the succes- 
sion, was not Luther, and Bucer, and Zwingle, and 
Calvin, and Knox, and all the leaders of the Pres- 
byterians and their successors ? 

But those who coin the phrase " historic episco- 
pate " as a substitute for the old term " apostolical 



IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 1 23 

succession," putting the emphasis on the bare idea 
of episcopal succession and thereby diverting at- 
tention from, and avoiding the difficult and danger- 
ous logical consequences of, all that is involved in 
the doctrine of ''apostolical succession" — these 
advocates would deny that the Reformers named 
were equally in the succession with Cranmer for the 
reason that they were not bishops, were not ordained 
bishops by bishops, and therefore did not receive 
episcopal succession. But even this plea will not 
avail anything. For not only did the Roman 
Church deny any succession to the Reformers, and 
not only did these Reformers renounce all claim to 
succession from that Church — Cranmer himself re- 
garding the king as the sole authority whence he de- 
rived his power to act as bishop — but they went 
farther and challenged the claim of Rome itself to 
uninterrupted episcopal succession. If these men 
did this — and there is abundant proof that they did 
— then it is evident that they did not believe in un- 
interrupted episcopal succession at all, and there- 
fore they could not have intended to build, and did 
not build, the Church of England on the basis of 
any so-called historic episcopate. Ridley, bishop 
and martyr, denounced Rome in the fiercest lan- 
guage as the bawd of Babylon, the wicked limb of 
antichrist, a bloody wolf that made havoc of the 
prophets of God. Hooper, bishop and martyr, Arch- 
deacon Philpot, and Archbishop Sandys all derided 



124 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

Rome's succession. Bishop Pilkington denied that 
it was a true succession which godly men should 
reverence, and gives a list of the wicked popes, with 
their abominations, saying, " This is the goodly suc- 
cession. . . . These be the successors and fathers. 
. . . God defend all good folk from all such doings," 
etc. Nowell, Dean of St. Paul's, Bancroft, Grindal, 
Whitaker all attacked Rome's claim to succession. 
Whitaker wrote : 

Faith is, as it were, the soul of the succession, which faith 
being wanting, the naked succession of persons is like a dead 
carcass without a soul. 

Bishop Jewel also attacks the Roman succession 
with vigor and learning. Like Pilkington, with fine 
scorn for the arguments of his adversaries he draws 
out the long catalogue of popes who hang gibbeted 
on the pages of history for their crimes, and points 
to the list as " M. Harding's holy succession." And, 
lest it should be answered that the iniquities of 
these popes did not invalidate the power originally 
given, he assails the historical record itself and 
challenges his opponent to prove the first link in the 
long-drawn chain : 

Wherefore telleth us M. Harding this long tale of succession ? 
Have these men their own succession in so safe record ? Who 
was, then, the Bishop of Rome next by succession unto Peter ? 
Who was the second ? Who the third ? Who the fourth ? 
. . . Hereby it is clear that of the four first bishops of Rome 
M. Harding cannot certainly tell us who in order succeeded the 
other. And thus, talking so much of succession, they are not 
well able to blaze their own succession. 



IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 12$ 

Stillingfleet, also referring to this Roman succes- 
sion, says, " The succession here is muddy as the 
Tiber itself." And again, as if putting the question 
to sleep forever, he says : 

If the successors of the apostles by the confession of Euse- 
bius are not certainly to be discovered, then what becomes of 
that unquestionable line of succession of the bishops' churches, 
with everyone's name set down in his order, as if the writer 
had been Clarencieux to the apostles themselves? 

Such is the testimony of history in briefest form. 
How is it possible that such testimony, so varied, so 
extensive, and so positive, could ever have existed 
if, as Anglicans assert, the claims they now make 
were ever held by the Anglican communion prior to 
1662, when the Ordinal was changed and the repre- 
sentatives of the Reformers and founders of the Eng- 
lish Church were slit in the ear or branded on the 
cheek, while those who approached nearest to Rome 
were considered as the only true churchmen ? None 
of the Reformers, neither Cranmer, nor Ridley, nor 
Latimer, nor Hooper, nor Jewel, nor Parkhurst, nor 
any of those who laid the foundations of the English 
Church could be regarded now as a good church- 
man. Had there been no Spanish Armada, the de- 
feat of which annihilated the hopes of English Cath- 
olics and drove them by thousands into the Angli- 
can Church, there never would have been witnessed 
the spectacle of excessive ritualism, priestly forms, 
and high episcopal assertions now, and since the in- 
flux of English Catholics into the national Church, 



126 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

seen and heard in the Church of England and in the 
Protestant Episcopal communion. 

But we have seen on what slender grounds these 
Anglican claims rest. We have shown from docu- 
ments relied on by Anglican writers that the conse- 
cration of Matthew Parker, notwithstanding all the 
arguments in its favor, is, to say the least, extremely 
doubtful. Its validity is open to serious objec- 
tion, and, therefore, all ordinations originating in 
that doubtful act cannot themselves be otherwise 
than doubtful. We have also seen that those who 
are said to have consecrated Parker could not them- 
selves produce unquestionable credentials of their 
own ordination ; that they neither believed in nor 
maintained the doctrine of the historic episcopate 
as now interpreted; that eminent bishops, martyrs, 
Reformers, and divines, not only did not hold to that 
doctrine, but expressly and persistently denied its 
truthfulness and necessity ; and that the Church of 
England in her books of ecclesiastical authority, 
such as the Ordinal and the list of Articles of Re- 
ligion, repudiated the doctrine now falsely attributed 
to her and wrongfully claimed by her teachers and 
divines. We have seen also that, even if the claim 
now made had any historical basis, the reception 
and transmission of apostolical succession by the 
founders of the English Church were, in the nature 
of things, an absolute impossibility if we are deal- 
ing with any real thing and not manufacturing 



IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 127 

something out of airy nothing in the fancy fields 
of fiction. 

We do not believe the evidence we have adduced 
can be set aside or that the conclusions we have 
reached can be destroyed. We are confident they 
will stand the test of keenest historical research ; 
and every attempt to refute them will only strengthen 
the position we have taken, show the weakness of 
Anglican pretensions, and demonstrate the radical 
difference between the teachings of present-day High 
Churchism and the doctrines of the founders of the 
Church of England in the Reformation period. 

The right, then, of the Church of England or of 
the Protestant Episcopal Church to lay down con- 
ditions of union with other Churches, to deny the 
validity of the ministry of those Churches, and 
thereby to leave them to the uncovenanted mercies 
of God — that right is nothing more than an arrogant 
assumption without foundation in Holy Scripture, 
in history, or in the character of their own ministry. 
Protestant imitations of papal assumptions have 
neither the dignity of antiquity nor the prestige of 
universality to commend them either to the con- 
science or the reason of men who cannot believe 
that the final happiness of untold millions depends 
on the certainty of Matthew Parker's consecration, 
or that in the run of the centuries there has been 
no break in the mystic flow of sacerdotal grace in- 
volved in apostolical succession. The ultimate and 



128 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

inevitable consequence of all such assumptions is the 
opening of the well-defended gates to the Trojan 
horse. The undercurrent of the Churches mak- 
ing such claims is necessarily Romeward, by the 
momentum of ideas arising from the argument of 
authority. Between papalism and evangelical Chris- 
tianity there is no logical middle ground, and the 
Protestant Church that arrays itself in the borrowed 
plumes of Rome, placing more emphasis on the 
things that are peculiarly Roman than on those 
things that are evangelical, may well take heed that 
its candlestick is not removed out of its place, or 
that it furnishes no modern illustration of the para- 
ble of the man who built his house upon the sand. 



METHODIST ORDERS. 129 



CHAPTER VII. 
Methodist Orders — Outline Statement* 

REASONING from the foregoing, it is necessary 
to consider what effect the conclusions reached 
may have upon the validity of Methodist orders. 
The first Protestant Episcopal Church established 
in the United States was the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. 1 Like the primitive Church, in the strict- 
est sense, which began with the Roman empire and, 
overcoming all barriers, penetrated to its utmost 
bounds, Episcopal Methodism began its history 
with the birth of the American nation, and has grown 
with its growth till its amazing successes have be- 
come in a large degree the wonder of the modern 
Church. The splendid outburst of Tertullian in de- 
fense of Christianity against the opposers of his day 
might with little change be applied to the marvelous 
career of this organized revival of primitive Chris- 
tianity : " We are but of yesterday, and we have 
filled every place among you — cities, islands, for- 
tresses, towns, market places, the very camp, tribes, 
companies, palace, senate, forum ; we have left noth- 
ing to you but the temples of your gods." 2 

But notwithstanding the progress of this phase 

1 Organized December, 1784. 2 Apologeticus, c. xxxvii. 



130 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

of evangelical Christianity, which from the beginning 
has been one of the most potent factors in the reli- 
gious, political, social, and intellectual development 
of Western civilization, and notwithstanding the 
many evidences of divine approbation in the fulfill- 
ment of its mission, the legitimacy of its ministry, 
in common with the ministry of other Churches, has 
been a constant subject of controversy from the be- 
ginning of its history until now by writers of High 
Church proclivities and sturdy advocates of the so- 
called historic episcopate. 

The arguments reiterated by this class of writers, 
as if they had never been disposed of, are that John 
Wesley, the founder of Methodism in England, 
never intended that the Methodists should become 
a distinct body from the Church of England; that 
Wesley never intended to institute episcopacy for 
the Methodists in the American States; that, if 
he did so intend and, in fact, did ordain Dr. Thomas 
Coke bishop or superintendent with that view, he, 
being simply a presbyter in the Church of England, 
possessed no authority for his act ; and that, there- 
fore, the ministry derived from such source is ille- 
gitimate and without mission or jurisdiction. 

Nor are these the only lines of opposition. The 
previous argument we have pursued against the 
assumption of an historic episcopate can be, and 
doubtless will be, turned against us, at least in ap- 
pearance ; for if ministerial orders in the Church 



METHODIST ORDERS. 131 

of England, it will be said, rest upon such doubt- 
ful foundations as we have shown, then orders in 
the Methodist Episcopal Church are equally doubt- 
ful, since they were derived from a minister of the 
Church of England. Then, again, on the assump- 
tion that English orders are valid, or whether they 
are or are not, the ministry of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, it will be asserted, is invalid for the 
reason that the Church of England never gave John 
Wesley or any other presbyter authority to ordain. 
Further, it may be affirmed that the arguments which 
destroy the doctrine of the historic episcopate are 
equally destructive to the doctrine of an historic 
presbyterate, or uninterrupted succession of elders, 
and therefore authority is again wanting in the 
Methodist eldership. There have also been some 
able Methodist writers who have endeavored to 
shift the ground of Methodist orders and to place 
them in direct succession of acknowledged episcopal 
authority, by showing that Wesley was actually or- 
dained to the episcopal office by Erasmus, a bishop 
of the Greek Church, of the diocese of Arcadia in 
the isle of Crete. 

Evidently it is not our purpose to evade objec- 
tions. We have intentionally stated the strongest 
possible reasons that, we think, have been, or can 
be, urged against Methodist orders. And this, we 
believe, is as it should be. To elaborate the com- 
monplaces of ecclesiastical polity with which most 



132 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

ordinarily well-informed persons are familiar, but 
avoiding those questions which are of genuine crit- 
ical value and which students of religious history 
specially investigate, may be thought sufficient for 
those who are happily satisfied with the broadest 
generalizations, or who, through defective training 
or through erroneous conceptions of the question 
before us, may have very little interest in the sub- 
ject. But such attempts can scarcely be considered 
worthy of the theme or helpful in any degree to 
its solution. The strongest objections to Metho- 
dist orders that can be formulated on historic or 
other grounds should be candidly stated and as 
honestly met ; and the most critical investigation 
of the source, nature, and authority of those orders 
should be faithfully and logically pursued. Ingen- 
ious arguments in defense of any cause which have 
no foundation in reality, but depend solely for their 
convincing power on the constructive or artistic 
skill of the writer to arrange his material or to color 
facts otherwise inimical to his theory, can never be 
relied upon in the building of a structure intended 
to withstand the severest tests of hostile criticism. 
Such arguments, like the goodness of Ephraim and 
Judah, are as the morning cloud and the early dew ; 
they soon pass away. Error in itself has no element 
of continuity. Truth alone abides forever. There- 
fore dubious principles, doubtful facts, and unwar- 
ranted inferences are discarded. They are not nee- 



METHODIST ORDERS. 133 

essary to uphold the validity of that ministry which, 
by its unparalleled successes under divine grace 
working through it to the salvation of countless 
multitudes, has demonstrated its divine authority; 
nor are they necessary to show, either from a scrip- 
tural or an historical standpoint, that that ministry 
is as valid as any ministry which ever existed or now 
ministers in Christendom. Nothing is of value that 
is not true. 

There is no reason why any objection against Epis- 
copal Methodist orders postulated by the Church 
of England or the Protestant Episcopal communion 
should be avoided. None such ever have. been. 
The Methodist ministry at its origin held the same 
attitude toward the High Church principles of the 
Church of England that the founders of the Church 
of England did toward those same principles in the 
Church of Rome. Hence, every defense of their 
orders made by those Reformers against the attacks 
of the Roman Church is equally valid now in de- 
fense of Methodist orders against the assaults of the 
historic episcopate party in the Church of England 
or in the Protestant Episcopal Church. The his- 
torical parallel is complete. Over against the cor- 
ruptions of papalism against which the Reformers 
struggled we may place the dead formality of the 
Church of England in the eighteenth century, its 
practical abandonment of its divine mission, and the 
almost universal diffusion of a coarse-grained ration- 



134 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

alism which was eating out the heart of faith in the 
supernatural among the people of England. The 
exclusive claims of the Roman Church, its arro- 
gant pretensions to a divinely constituted hierarchy, 
its confident appeal to antiquity, and its intolerance 
of all movements that questioned its history, its 
piety, or its authority were all mirrored in that 
simulacrum of a Church which sat in judgment 
on Methodists and denied the validity of their 
orders. If the Reformers denied apostolical succes- 
sion to the Church of Rome, the founders of Metho- 
dism with equal reason denied it to the Church of 
England. For it could never be asserted that that 
Church possessed better claims to uninterrupted 
succession than the Church of Rome, from which it 
had severed itself in revolution. If the Reformers 
discarded all authority to preach the word of God 
and to administer the holy sacraments by virtue 
of their ministerial character derived exclusively 
from the Church of Rome as such, the fathers of 
Methodism did likewise relative to any power 
obtained by them from the Church of England as 
such and not belonging to them as ministers in 
the universal Church of God. If the Reformers 
who were the founders of the Church of England, 
having been cut off as schismatics by the Church 
which itself had proved false to its mission, fell back 
on the word of God as the sole authoritative crite- 
rion of Christian faith and practice and on the inner- 



METHODIST ORDERS. 1 35 

ent rights of faithful men in Christ Jesus, thus as- 
serting their allegiance to the Gospel rather than 
subserviency to changeable human enactments, so 
also did the founders of Episcopal Methodism in 
the duties which devolved upon them, and for 
similar reasons. Rejecting the demands of canon- 
ical law, which law the founders of the Anglican 
hierarchy had themselves violated, and laying aside 
by the law of necessity the usages of ages, as the 
Reformers also did, " the state of the times and the 
exigency of affairs rendering it necessary," the found- 
ers of the Methodist episcopate went back of Church 
canons and customs and behind all slowly evolved 
theories of the necessity of episcopal ordination to 
the essential validity of the ministerial function, and 
vindicated their action by appeal to Holy Scripture 
and the practice of the primitive Church. If appeal 
to a general council is the inalienable right of the 
ministry, this appeal to Scripture and antiquity by 
the founders of Methodism can never be denied. 
Moreover, whatever right, power, faculty, or author- 
ity the founders of the Anglican Church possessed 
to revolt from the Church of Rome, that same right 
belonged to the fathers of Methodism to separate 
from the Church of England. And, whatever right, 
power, or authority, scriptural or ecclesiastical, Wil- 
liam Barlow, Miles Coverdale, and John Hodgkins 
had to consecrate Matthew Parker Archbishop of 
Canterbury and thus establish an English episco- 



136 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

pate, John Wesley and James Creighton also pos- 
sessed the same right to ordain Thomas Coke 
Bishop of the Methodist Societies in the United 
States and thus establish a scriptural episcopate in 
the New World. If the consecrators of Parker 
obeyed the commands of their sovereign, the conse- 
crator of Coke was obeying the urgent demands of 
a free and sovereign people who owed allegiance 
to no ecclesiastical authority, but to whom he 
owed special care and oversight. Whatever can be 
claimed for the Anglican episcopate that is essential 
to its validity cannot by any show of fact or princi- 
ple of reason be denied to the Methodist episcopate. 
It is wholly gratuitous, then, to assume that Epis- 
copal Methodism is illegitimate in its origin. Its 
foundation is as solid as that on which is based the 
venerable Church of England. To that Church — 
and of course the same is true relative to the Prot- 
estant Episcopal denomination — Episcopal Metho- 
dism concedes no ministerial right, power, or faculty 
to preach the word and administer the sacraments 
which she does not with equal right claim for her- 
self. Nor is Episcopal Methodism isolated from 
the catholic Church of God. All that is of the 
past in the lives and labors of apostles, prophets, 
teachers, and martyrs belongs to her. The hymns 
of the ages are hers ; the theology of the earliest 
days is hers ; reverent regard for decency and or- 
der in the service of the sanctuary, as is set 'forth 



METHODIST ORDERS. I 37 

in the Ritual, is characteristic of her in the adminis- 
tration of the holy sacraments. Whatever historic 
connection the Church of England holds with the 
past through its founders Episcopal Methodism 
also holds through Wesley, who was as truly a con- 
necting link with the English episcopate, he having 
been ordained by Archbishop Potter, as the English 
Reformers were with the Roman episcopate. Wes- 
ley certainly had the same right to ordain that the 
Reformers had. His ordination of Dr. Coke was as 
real as was William Barlow's consecration of Mat- 
thew Parker. The Methodist episcopate is there- 
fore as truly historic as is that of the Anglican 
Church. For Methodist ordinations are not mere 
imitations of a real act. They are not pretended 
consecrations, nor are they mere blessings or in- 
ductions to office. Ordination in Episcopal Metho- 
dism is the solemn endowment of authority by the 
Church, acting through her authorized channels, for 
the functions of ministry in the Church of God. To 
the Church of Christ was this power given ; and in 
the exercise of that power Methodism ordains bish- 
ops, elders, and deacons. This is her intention, and 
has been since the first bishop was ordained, or con- 
secrated, by her authority, as is evidenced by her 
ordination formula: " The Lord pour upon thee 
the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a bishop 
in the Church of God now committed unto thee by 
the authority of the Church through the imposition 



138 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

of our hands, in the name of the Father, and of 
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen." 

Here, then, are the outlines of the subjects inviting 
our investigation. The authority of Mr. Wesley to 
ordain and to originate an episcopacy, and whether 
he intended to consecrate Dr. Coke to the episco- 
pal office, will constitute the core of the examina- 
tion. If it can be shown by unimpeachable evi- 
dence that Mr. Wesley did have authority, such 
authority as the founders of the Church of England 
asserted and claimed, then it will follow that Meth- 
odist orders are as valid as those of the Church of 
England, and that the historic episcopate is as much 
a fact in Episcopal Methodism as it is in the Angli- 
can communion. 



ORDINATION OF WESLEY. 1 39 



CHAPTER VIII. 
Ordination of Wesley by a Greek. Bishop* 

IN defense of the historic episcopate Anglican 
writers have sometimes endeavored to trace the 
succession of English bishops, not through Rome, 
but, through Ephesus, directly to the apostle John. 1 
It is a very daring feat, this attempted Ephesian suc- 
cession, and is accomplished, with commendable skill, 
at the expense of history. Some Methodist writers 
have also labored to prove that the Rev. John Wes- 
ley, at the time he ordained Thomas Coke, D.C.L., 
Bishop of the Methodist Episcopalians in the 
United States, was himself a validly ordained bishop 
according to the rites of the Greek Church. The 
Methodist episcopate would therefore, in that event, 
be in direct succession to the apostles through the 
bishops and patriarchs of the Eastern Church, if it 
could be proved that that episcopacy preserved an 
unbroken continuity. 

To such tactual succession, however, Episcopal 
Methodism has never laid claim ; nor would assured 
possession of it be considered as any greater warrant 

1 Chapin, Primitive Church, p. 291. Comp. with Lingard, History 
of England, and Alzog, Universal Church History, English 
translation. See also Churton, Early English Church, pp. 17-19. 



140 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

for the genuineness of her orders than the author- 
ity she has exercised from the beginning as a true 
member of the one universal body of Christ. What 
Dean Sutcliffe, an eminent champion of the Angli- 
can Church in the days of Queen Elizabeth, affirmed 
in defense of that Church against the accusations 
of the Romanists may be now as confidently de- 
clared of Episcopal Methodism : " He [that is, his 
Roman opponent] asserts that we are destitute of 
the succession. And he thinks that we are terribly 
pressed by this argument, but without reason. For 
the external succession, which both heretics often 
have and the orthodox have not, is of no moment. 
Not even our adversaries themselves, indeed, are 
certain respecting their own succession, which they 
so greatly boast. But we are certain that our doc- 
tors have succeeded to the apostles and prophets 
and most ancient fathers." But since the ordina- 
tion of Mr. Wesley by a Greek bishop has been 
again affirmed with some show of documentary 
proof, and that by writers whose opinions are enti- 
tled to respect, and since we are desirous of reach- 
ing the true ground for Mr. Wesley's authority, it 
is fitting, before we enter upon a consideration of 
the known facts concerning the validity of Metho- 
dist orders, to carefully examine the evidence in the 
case. 

What are the facts? In 1763 Erasmus, a bishop 
in the Greek Church, of the diocese of Arcadia in 



ORDINATION OF WESLEY. 141 

Crete, visited London and became acquainted with 
the Rev. John Wesley and many Methodist preach- 
ers. At that time the Methodist societies were in 
sore need of ordained ministers who might lawfully 
administer the sacraments. The Anglican bishops 
would do nothing. Not every preacher presented 
by Wesley for ordination could annotate a Greek 
tragedy or write a disquisition on rare exceptions 
in Latin syntax. Thousands throughout the king- 
dom were hungering for the bread of life and 
clamoring for the rites of religion. The intention 
of many preachers to step over legitimate bounds 
and to administer the sacred ordinances was pre- 
vented solely by the restraining influence of Wesley. 
But every day the pressure increased with the ex- 
pansion of his work and the success of his preachers. 
At this juncture Mr. Wesley, who made a broad 
distinction between a preacher and a pastor, and 
deemed it sinful for an unordained person to exer- 
cise the functions of a consecrated minister applied 
to the visiting Greek bishop to ordain for him some 
of the preachers. The request was granted. But 
when this ordination became known the enemies of 
this new Reformation, fearful of the mighty impulse 
thus given, attacked Mr. Wesley and his ordained 
helpers with such virulence that one of those or- 
dained severed himself from the Connection. Mr. 
Wesley himself was publicly taunted with having 

importuned without avail the Greek bishop to 
10 



I42 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

ordain him to the episcopacy. Rev. Augustus M. 
Toplady, several years after the supposed event, 
which in some particulars recalls the ordination of 
Archbishop Parker, renewed the charge in public- 
print and accused Wesley of having violated the 
oath of supremacy. " Did you not," he wrote, ad- 
dressing Mr. Wesley, " strongly press this supposed 
Greek bishop to consecrate you a bishop, that you 
might be invested with a power of ordaining what 
ministers you pleased to officiate in your societies 
as clergymen ? " Rev. Rowland Hill, another violent 
antagonist of that day, made a similar charge. 

In addition to this evidence, an original letter by 
a Rev. Samuel A. Peters, of the Protestant Episco- 
pal Church and at the date of the letter Bishop- 
elect of Vermont, has been adduced, with other 
testimony, by an able advocate of the Erasmian 
consecration. 1 This letter was written to the Rev. 
Samuel Coate, Presiding Elder of the Lower Canada 
District, and is here reproduced for due consider- 
ation : 

Corlears Hook, New York, May n, 1809. 

Reverend and Dear Sir : I was highly entertained 
yesterday at the Conference in John Street, at which presided 
the Right Rev. Francis Asbury, Bishop over the Methodist 
Churches in America, whose episcopal authority has been 
spoken against by some of the Episcopalians claiming author- 
ity under the Latin Church, who boldly deny the validity of 
Methodist episcopacy, and found their assertions on a point by 
no means certain — that the Rev. John Wesley was never more 

1 See Methodist Quarterly Review, January, 187S. 



ORDINATION OF WESLEY. 1 43 

than a presbyter in the Church of England, and, of course, could 
not consecrate Dr. Coke, Mr. Asbury, and others to a higher 
order than a presbyter. 

I took it for granted that the said denial was made with a 
view to expose the Methodist bishops to the severity of the 
Prcemunire Act of Henry VIII if the Methodists should prove 
that the Rev. John Wesley was consecrated a bishop in the 
Christian Church by Erasmus, a Greek bishop, and now bishop 
and successor of Titus, first Bishop of Crete. But if the Meth- 
odists do not come forward and prove Mr. Wesley to be a 
bishop according to the Greek Church, then the enemy will say 
the Methodist episcopacy is but a Latin presbytery. 

Seeing a book entitled An Enquiry into the Validity of 
Methodist Episcopacy, and considering its artful tendency, I 
published a vindication of the Rev. Hugh Peters, and added 
a note which gives the origin of Methodist episcopacy in Eng- 
land. My design was to warn the Methodists to keep out of the 
reach of the English Prczmunire Act, and to let their enemies 
vaunt over their own bold assertion rather than to expose to 
certain misery and death their pious and conscientious bishops, 
who would sooner run their heads against a burning mountain 
than usurp episcopacy. 

Had I been present when Erasmus consecrated Mr. John 
Wesley a bishop in the Christian Church I would sooner broil 
on the gridiron with St. Lawrence than divulge it and prove it, 
so long as the English Prcemunire Act exists as a pillar to 
support the hierarchy of the Church of England. 

Dr. Seabury I introduced to Mr. John Wesley after the 
Archbishop of Canterbury refused to consecrate him Bishop 
of Connecticut, and Mr. Wesley would have consecrated him, 
and Dr. Seabury was willing to be consecrated by Mr. Wesley ; x 
but Mr. Wesley, by the best advice, would not sign the letter of 
orders to Seabury as bishop in the Christian Church. 

Then Dr. Horn, Bishop of Norwich, Dr. Barkley, and others 

1 Seabury was the first bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church. 
The Archbishop of Canterbury refused to ordain him for many 
reasons, some of a legal character, and because he was not known to 
be the choice of all the people. 



144 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

advised Dr. Seabury to receive his consecration from the Jacob- 
ite bishops in Scotland, who are not State bishops, but were de- 
graded from being lord bishops because they would not take 
the oath of allegiance to William III in 1688. 

I pretend not to be in the secret of the consecration of Mr. 
John Wesley by Erasmus, but I am so convinced of the fact 
that I would as soon be consecrated a bishop in the Christian 

Church by Bishop Asbury, or , Bishop Coke, or , 

as by Dr. Sutton, Archbishop of Canterbury, or by Dr. Porteus, 
Lord Bishop of London. And that the jttre divino of episco- 
pacy from Erasmus came from St. John of Jerusalem, Rome 
and England admit; but Rome admits not the jure divino 
episcopacy in the Church of England. 

The question still remains, Was Mr. John Wesley made a bishop 
by Erasmus, now Bishop of Crete ? The answer is valid : John 
Wesley would not have acted as bishop if he had not been con- 
secrated by Erasmus, nor would Dr. Coke, nor Mr. Asbury, 
etc. Thus believed Dr. Horn, Dr. Barkley, Charles Wesley, and 
hundreds of others who knew them as well as, reverend and 
dear brother, Yours affectionately, 

Samuel A. Peters. 

I am Bishop-elect of Ver(d)mont; should I ever go there or 
in Connecticut, I would solicit a consecration by a bishop in 
the line from Erasmus, in order to be free of error supposed to 
exist in the Latin Church. 

The Rev. Mr. Coate, Pearl Street, New York. 

The author of this letter is said to have been well 
known to several Methodist ministers, one of whom, 
it is said, has left the following fragment of a con- 
versation held with Dr. Peters : 

" Dr. Peters informed me that when Dr. Seabury 
was refused consecration by the bishop in England 
the said bishop told him he was prohibited by the 
law of the realm from consecrating him, but advised 
him to apply to Mr. Wesley for consecration. Dr. 



ORDINATION OF WESLEY. I45 

Seabury replied, * Is Wesley a bishop ? ' To which 
the bishop answered, ' We do not undertake to an- 
swer that question. It is not for us to determine. 
But apply to him ; he can satisfy you and conse- 
crate you.' Dr. Peters was present at the interview, 
and went with and introduced Dr. Seabury to Mr. 
Wesley, who was so far satisfied that he would have 
been willingly consecrated by him if Mr. Wesley 
would have signed his letter of orders as bishop, 
which Mr. Wesley could not do without incurring 
the penalty of the Prcsmnnire Act. He would have 
signed as superintendent," etc. 

Dr. Peters is also quoted as authority for the fol- 
lowing : " A clergyman once asked Mr. Wesley, 
' Were you consecrated bishop by Erasmus ? • Wes- 
ley replied, ' Have you read the Prcemnnire Act ? ' 
'Yes.' * Would you have me answer you truly?' 
'Yes, or not at all.' 'Then, under the circum- 
stances, I cannot answer you.' ' This is all the 
material evidence there is thus far to prove that 
Wesley was ordained bishop by Erasmus of Crete. 
Inferences there are many, such as those drawn from 
the autocratic sway of Wesley from this time, his 
respect for episcopal prerogatives, and from the 
fact that he never did categorically deny that he 
was ordained bishop by the Greek Bishop of Ar- 
cadia. 

By his enemies Wesley was taunted with having 
sought episcopal ordination. But there is as 



I46 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

strong evidence at least that Wesley was ordained to 
the episcopacy by Erasmus as there is that William 
Barlow, the consecrator of Matthew Parker, was 
ever ordained Bishop of St. David's. The Eliza- 
bethan bishops, Jewel and others, were openly 
challenged to produce authority for the episco- 
pacy they had usurped. The evidence, so far as it 
goes, is given by one who knew John Wesley. He 
also affirms that he is so confident that Wesley was 
made a bishop that he is willing to receive episco- 
pal ordination from Coke or Asbury. According to 
his statements he was not the only one who believed 
as he did. Dr. Seabury, the first bishop of the Prot- 
estant Episcopal Church, is declared by this testa- 
tor, who is at the date of this testimony Bishop- 
elect of Vermont, to have been willing to receive 
episcopal ordination from John Wesley. Dr. Peters 
also states that well-known and eminent persons be- 
lieved that the ordination by Erasmus actually oc- 
curred. The conversations reported by him sound 
natural, granting the circumstances. And if it be 
said that he must have had a remarkably long mem- 
ory to have recalled with such precision particular 
events and conversations of forty-five or forty-six 
years before the writing of this letter, it may be re- 
plied that such a feat of memory is no more astonish- 
ing than the extraordinary ability of the Earl of 
Nottingham, who is introduced as a witness by An- 
glicans, testifying that the Lambeth register pre- 



ORDINATION OF WESLEY. 147 

sented to him for identification "was ye original 
he saw and read when Archbishop Parker was or- 
dained " fifty-four years before. 

Thus we have presented this evidence in the most 
favorable light. But, however probable from this 
evidence the ordination of Wesley may seem, we 
cannot admit the fact on this evidence alone. 
Stronger proof must be produced. The same rig- 
orous method we employed in dealing with the 
documentary evidence in favor of Matthew Parker's 
consecration must be applied to this also. The un- 
supported statements of the letter must be weighed 
in the balance. The author of the letter must also 
be considered as to his trustworthiness, for nothing 
should be accepted as true that cannot withstand 
the Ithuriel touch of criticism. 

Who, then, was this Rev. Samuel A. Peters? He 
was a minister of the Church of England in Hebron, 
Conn. In 1774 he went to England, and was in paro- 
chial charge in London for thirty years. Returning 
to the United States, he was elected Bishop of Ver- 
mont, but was not ordained, not through any fault of 
his, but for the reason, it is said, that the Episcopal 
Convention of Vermont had not signed the constitu- 
tion of the Protestant Episcopal Church. He was con- 
sidered by those who knew him — and some of these, 
as the Rev. Ezekiel Cooper, were prominent in Meth- 
odist history — as a man of talent and of erudition. 

Thus far he seems to be an important witness. 



148 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

But historic truth forbids that he should hold that 
distinction. He was the author of the so-called 
" Blue Laws of Connecticut," ' and the character he 
bears as the author of a History of Connecticut ut- 
terly discredits his testimony in this or in any other 
case. The statements he makes in that history as 
sober truth can be equaled only by the impossibil- 
ities of Baron Munchausen. 

Analysis of Peters's testimony proves its worth- 
lessness : 

1. His letter, if admitted in evidence at all, admits 
that he was not present when the ordination was 
performed, that he was not in the secret, and does 
not mention anyone who was. His information 
was probably absorbed from the same source from 
which Toplady and Rowland Hill drew theirs — a 
floating suspicion at the beginning, growing out of 
the ordination of Dr. Jones by Erasmus at Wesley's 
request, developed into a probability because of its 
possibility, and finally charged home as an accom- 
plished fact. 

2. There is no evidence that the persons men- 
tioned as believing the summons really believed it. 
On the contrary, the Rev. Charles Wesley could 
never have given it credence, for he severely criti- 
cised his brother for consecrating Coke, since he 

1 For an account of him see Appleton's Cyclopedia of American 
Biography ; Sprague's Annals, vol. v, pp. 191-200; also article on 
the Blue Laws in Methodist Quarterly Revieto, January, 1878. 



ORDINATION OF WESLEY. 1 49 

was not himself a bishop, and had by his uncanon- 
ical act realized the Nag's Head fable concerning the 
consecration of Archbishop Parker. 

3. Certain statements in the letter do not harmo- 
nize with the reported conversations. In the one we 
are told that Wesley refused because of the Act of 
Prcemunireto admit to a clergyman that he had been 
ordained; but in the other he admits the fact to Dr. 
Seabury, and not only admits it, as he must have 
done in order to satisfy Seabury of his episcopal 
power, but is willing, according to this testimony, 
to ordain Dr. Seabury, provided the law can be 
evaded by the use of deceptive terms. Wesley did 
employ the term "superintendent " in the letter of 
orders for Dr. Coke ; and, in addition to his dislike of 
the term "bishop " as an official designation among 
the Methodists, subjecting them to misunderstand- 
ing on the part of those who could not think of 
a bishop other than as a mighty lord over God's 
heritage, he may have used it as a matter of prudence, 
in order that his enemies might have no possible 
chance to bring him within the clutch of the law. 
His use of the term " superintendent," in his letter 
of orders for Dr. Coke, could in no wise be decep- 
tive, for that word, the Latin for the Greek ettigk 0770c, 
meant precisely what he intended Coke to be — a 
scriptural bishop, and not a bishop according to 
the idea of a bishop then prevalent. But he could 
not employ that same term in a letter of orders for 



150 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

Seabury— for that was not wholly what Seabury 
meant or desired — without being deceptive and 
without violating the law by a technical evasion. 

The Wesley of Peters is not the Wesley of 
Methodism. If there was any radiant virtue shin- 
ing brighter than another in the character of that 
saintly man it was his unfeigned sincerity. His 
was a nature that ever sought reality, as strong na- 
tures ever do, and as sensitively shunned the shad- 
owy and illusive. He was not immaculate. He 
was not infallible. It is true that all the moral or 
immoral possibilities of human nature are unknown 
to us, and that only those who live an unreflective 
life on the surface of things, sublimely unconscious 
of the unfathomable depths beneath, can ever affirm 
with unshaken confidence what they would do or 
would not do in every circumstance amid the en- 
tanglements of our complex life. We sometimes 
change places with circumstance, and he who is the 
master one day is a slave the next. But here we 
are dealing with no ordinary man. Great men are 
like mountains — they must be looked at from a dis- 
tance in order to be seen. The softening haze of 
time tones down the crude, everyday conventional- 
isms which reduced them while living to the uniform- 
ity of a dead level with their fellows, and magnifies 
those qualities which won for them an epitaph in 
history. It is so with Wesley. Few men probably 
have ever lived who combined in themselves greater 



ORDINATION OF WESLEY. I 5 I 

gifts, both spiritual and intellectual, of a certain 
kind, or who employed those gifts to more practical 
or more beneficent ends. He was not a Newton, 
nor was he called to exercise his powers on a lofty 
scale in the cabinets of diplomacy. But in him was 
the genius of a Richelieu, the organizing power 
and sublime abnegation of self in obedience to a 
dominant idea characteristic of Loyola, the heroism 
of a Luther, the mildness of a Melanchthon, and 
the spiritual fervor of a Kempis. He was a man 
sent from God, a marked product of a special prov- 
idence. We cannot, therefore, imagine, while yet 
leaving a margin for the play of sinful forces in hu- 
man nature, that Wesley is truthfully represented 
in this letter of the Rev. Dr. Peters. Living, as he 
did, in daily communion with God and in the happy 
assurance of the witness of the Holy Spirit, such 
subterfuges and unworthy devices are unthinkable. 
Psychology has some relation to history. 

Further, we have Wesley's own denial of the 
charges made by Toplady and the Rev. Rowland 
Hill. Thomas Olivers, with Wesley's consent, re- 
plied to the former, and denied without qualification 
that Mr. Wesley ever requested Erasmus to ordain 
him bishop. 1 

To the latter Mr. Wesley himself replied : " I never 
entreated anything of Bishop Erasmus, who had 
abundant unexceptional credentials as to his epis- 

1 Tyerman, Life of Wesley, vol. ii, pp. 488, 4S9. 



152 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

copal character. Nor did he ' ever reject any over- 
ture ' made by me. Herein Mr. Hill has been mis- 
informed. I deny the fact ; let him produce his 
evidence." " 

This explicit denial, however, is not considered by 
some as necessarily closing the case. Wesley, it is 
argued, did not deny that he was ordained, but only 
the strictly literal statement that Erasmus rejected 
his overtures. And if we hold by the exact letter 
of the text, as Shylock does by his bond, this is cer- 
tainly correct. Wesley, indeed, does not say with 
critical precision and verbal exactness that he was 
not ordained by Erasmus. He may never have, in 
strict etymological definition of words, " entreated " 
anything of Erasmus ; and so far as the literal record 
is concerned he may have simply asked without en- 
treating, and Erasmus may have complied. He was 
not charged, it is urged, with having been ordained, 
but with having entreated ordination, and Wesley 
denied that only which was charged. If he was not 
ordained, why did he not in distinct terms deny 
that fact ? By such reasonings the inference is 
drawn that Mr. Wesley was actually ordained to 
the episcopacy by the Greek Bishop of Arcadia. 

Is there solid ground for the inference ? We 
think not. To the clear intellect and quick moral 
sense of Wesley all such reasoning would have 
been nothing more than paltry quibbling. If he 

1 Wesley, Works, vol. vi, p. 196. 



ORDINATION OF WESLEY. 1 53 

had been ordained, of what value would a mere play 
upon words have served in the conflict with his ad- 
versaries ? True, he does not expressly say, " I was 
not ordained," but only that he did not entreat 
Erasmus for anything. But in denying that does 
he not in simple truth deny all that it implied, and 
not only that he desired to be ordained bishop ? He 
did not fail of ordination because the episcopal au- 
thority of Erasmus was doubtful, for he says that that 
bishop had " abundant unexceptional credentials as 
to his episcopal character." Nor did he fail because 
Erasmus refused to ordain him. He failed in no 
sense in anything, for the reason that he neither 
entreated nor desired anything of Erasmus. Noth- 
ing need be plainer than that. He unequivocally 
says, in reply to Rowland Hill, " I deny the fact ; 
let him produce his evidence." Suppose Rowland 
Hill could, by testimony obtained from Erasmus or 
otherwise, have proved that Wesley was ordained 
bishop, as was possible if Wesley had been so or- 
dained, would Wesley's technical denial that he had 
never "entreated" Erasmus have been of any 
avail in the judgment of the world? The moral 
sense of mankind would have condemned the finely 
drawn distinction of the casuist and despised the 
moral cowardice of the carpet reformer. Wesley 
was not deficient in ethical discrimination. The 
denial of the fact charged, which charges assume 
that the greater act was not accomplished, carried 



154 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

with it a denial of the whole thing — ordination, re- 
jection of ordination, rejection of request for or- 
dination. On the strength of that denial Mr. Hill 
was invited to produce his evidence, which he 
never did, as Wesley knew he never could. 

Again, of what value could such an ordination 
have been to Mr. Wesley? He knew as well before 
the ordination as, it is asserted, he did after that 
the Prtzmiuiire Act of Henry VIII was still in force. 
He knew that he could never exercise episcopal 
function in the realm of England without subjecting 
himself, and those connected with him in the Metho- 
dist movement, to the severe penalties of that act, 
and that it could only bring disaster without any 
compensating benefit. But, it is said, by virtue of 
episcopal ordination he would have been enabled, 
in harmony with his lifelong belief in episcopal au- 
thority, to consecrate ministers for the Methodist 
Societies in Scotland and America. Why, then, in 
1780 did he apply to the Bishop of London to or- 
dain for him even one minister for America if he 
himself had been ordained bishop ? And why, 
when he did consecrate such ministers four years 
after, did he not base his authority for the act on 
the fact of his own ordination by this successor 
of Titus, the first Bishop of Crete? 

Never in a single instance does he appeal to any 
authority or power of order derived from Erasmus. 
But, like the Reformers who founded the Church of 



ORDINATION OF WESLEY. 1 55 

England and, without lawful episcopal authority, 
originated the Anglican episcopacy, his appeal was 
to the New Testament and the earliest practice of 
the primitive Church. On that sure foundation 
and his providential call he based his authority for 
the greatest act of life. 

A critical estimate, then, of the evidence in the 
case places the ordination of Wesley by Erasmus 
in the same category with the ordination of William 
Barlow. Neither of them can be proved, but both 
are disproved by the testimony adduced to establish 
the fact. 



156 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 



CHAPTER IX. 
Episcopal Ordination of Dr. Coke* 

IN September, 1784, the Rev. John Wesley, assisted 
by a presbyter of the Church of England and 
two other elders, ordained by solemn imposition 
of hands the Rev. Dr. Thomas Coke to the epis- 
copal office. Advocates of the historic episcopate 
deny the validity of that ordination as vigorously 
as the Greek and Roman Churches deny the valid- 
ity of Anglican orders. The uncanonical character 
of the act is net emphasized, for that would con- 
demn the uncanonical proceedings of some Anglican 
ordinations ; and for this other reason, that, while 
uncanonically conferred orders are regarded as ir- 
regular, they are not therefore on that account es- 
sentially invalid. The objection to Methodist or- 
ders is founded on the assumed lack of authority in 
Mr. Wesley, and on the further fact, as is supposed, 
that Mr. Wesley did not intend to consecrate Dr. 
Coke bishop, but only designed by a solemn and 
fitting service to set him apart to an indefinite su- 
perintendency or oversight of the Methodist soci- 
eties in North America. Absurd as this attempt 
may seem to charge the founders of Methodism in 



EPISCOPAL ORDINATION OF DR. COKE. 1 57 

the United States either with having entered into 
a sacrilegious conspiracy to snatch episcopal power 
by deliberate misconstruction of Wesley's act, or as 
having been so deficient in common sense and in 
elementary knowledge of ecclesiastical forms and 
usages, notwithstanding they belonged to the 
Church of England, that they did not comprehend 
the significance of Dr. Coke's consecration, igno- 
rantly assuming that Wesley intended episcopacy 
when he did not, yet such objection has been the 
standing argument of Anglicans from the beginning 
of Episcopal Methodism until now, and has even 
sometimes appeared, thoagh in modified form, in 
the works of Methodist writers on our ecclesiastical 
polity both in this country and in England. 

In the investigation of this subject we have be* 
fore us the act, the intention of the act, and the 
authority for the act. That the act of ordination 
was performed, or that some ceremony was held by 
which Mr. Wesley gave some special authority to 
Dr. Coke to exercise ordaining and supervisory 
powers over Methodist societies in North America, 
is not disputed. On this point all are agreed, and 
we need not encumber the subject with needless 
discussion. The authority for the act may be con- 
sidered later, when it is clearly understood what the 
act was ; for unless we apprehend the real nature of 
the act itself the question of authority is an indif- 
ferent matter. We have, then, before us the simple 
11 



158 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

question, Did Mr. Wesley intend to ordain the 
Rev. Dr. Coke a bishop for the Methodists in the 
United States ? 

In order to reach a solution of this question in 
the light of Anglican objections, which conclusion 
shall be in harmony with all the facts in the case, it 
will be necessary to consider, though briefly, the 
material circumstances out of which the ordination 
grew. 

For a period of some forty years prior to the 
consecration of Dr. Coke Mr. Wesley had aban- 
doned the High Church principles of ministerial or- 
ders which he once held with reverent loyalty. 
In his early days he believed in three divinely es- 
tablished orders, in apostolical succession, in the 
supreme authority of bishops, and that no one had 
the right to administer the holy sacraments without 
permission from bishops in direct succession from 
the apostles. In 1746 his views underwent a 
change. The character of the work in which he 
had been engaged and the extraordinary develop- 
ments of it in all parts of the kingdom broadened 
his sympathies, and gradually led him in various 
ways* to look beyond the narrow ecclesiasticism in 
which his prejudices had been nurtured and to ex- 
amine seriously the reasons for dissenting belief 
and practice. On a journey to Bristol, this same 
year, he read a work on Church government by an 
eminent Dissenter, Peter King, Lord High Chan- 



EPISCOPAL ORDINATION OF DR. COKE. 1 59 

cellor of England, entitled An Inquiry into the 
Constitution, Discipline, Unity, and Worship of the 
Primitive Church. The principles enunciated in 
that little book with clearness, and strongly sup- 
ported by Scripture and patristic citations, were 
that a presbyter is a person in holy orders, having 
thereby an inherent right to perform the whole 
office of a bishop ; that bishops and presbyters are 
of the same order, but differ in degree ; and that, 
therefore, though a presbyter by his ordination has 
as ample inherent right and power to discharge all 
clerical offices as any bishop, yet peace, unity, and 
order oblige him not to invade the privileges 
granted to bishops by custom of the Church. 

The argument of Lord King made a profound 
impression on the mind of Wesley. In his Journal, 
under date of January 20, 1746, he writes : 

I set out for Bristol. On the road I read over Lord King's 
account of the primitive Church. In spite of the vehement 
prejudice of my education, I was ready to believe that this was 
a fair and impartial draft; but, if so, it would follow that 
bishops and presbyters are (essentially) of one order, and 
that originally every Christian congregation was a church in- 
dependent of all others. 

He also read Stillingfleet's Irenicon. The con- 
clusions reached in that work were that Christ 
did not determine the form of Church government 
by positive laws ; that episcopacy was lawful, but 
not necessary ; that bishops and presbyters were 
of the same order; and that the founders of the 



l60 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

Church of England did not hold to the divine right 

of episcopacy. The influence of these works on 

the views of Wesley is visible in the Conferences he 

held with his preachers and in his correspondence 

with various persons on the subject. The year 

after the reading of Lord King's work the whole 

question of Church government was gone over in the 

Conference at London, and the conclusion reached 

that no binding form of government for the Church 

was laid down in the New Testament. Nine years 

later his convictions are the same. July 3, 1756, he 

writes to a minister in the Church of England : 

As to my own judgment, I still believe " the episcopal form 
of Church government to be scriptural and apostolical;" I 
mean, well agreeing with the practice and writings of the apos- 
tles. But that it is prescribed in Scripture I do not believe. 
This opinion, which I once zealously espoused, I have been 
heartily ashamed of ever since I read Bishop Stillingfleet's 
Irenico?i. I think he has unanswerably proved that " neither 
Christ nor his apostles prescribe any particular form of Church 
government, and that the plea of divine right for diocesan 
episcopacy was never heard of in the primitive Church." 1 

Apostolical succession vanishes in the presence of 
such beliefs. Over his own signature, February 
19, 1761, Wesley wrote: "I deny that the Romish 
bishops came down by uninterrupted succession 
from the apostles. I never could see it proved, and 
I am persuaded I never shall." a This signified a 
denial also of uninterrupted succession in the An- 

1 Wesley, Works, vol. vii, p. 284, Letter to Rev. Mr. Clarke. 

2 Ibid., vol.* iv, p. 90. 



EPISCOPAL ORDINATION OF DR. COKE. l6l 

glican Church, and that Wesley had at that date 
forever broken with the doctrine of the divine right 
of episcopacy. His declaration years afterward to 
his brother, Charles Wesley, " The uninterrupted 
succession I know to be a fable which no man ever 
did or can prove," was only the expression of a be- 
lief held for forty years previously. 

Lord King in his account of the primitive Church 
had said : " As for ordination, I find but little said 
of this in antiquity; yet, as little as there is, there 
are clearer proofs of the presbyters ordaining than 
there are of their administering the Lord's Supper;" 
and he quotes Firmilian, in his Epistle to Cyprian : 
" All power and grace is constituted in the Church, 
where seniors preside who have the power of baptiz- 
ing, confirming, and ordaining." In June, 1780, 
Mr. Wesley, referring to some doubts and pruden- 
tial observations of his brother Charles, writes : 

Read Bishop Stillingfleet's Ire?iicon, or any impartial history 
of the ancient Church, and I believe you will think as I do. I verily 
believe I have as good a right to ordain as to administer the 
Lord's Supper. But I see abundant reasons why I should not 
use that right, unless I was turned out of the Church. At present 
we are just in our place. 

Such were Wesley's beliefs concerning Church 
government and ministerial orders, from 1746 to 
1780, a period of thirty-four years, comprising the 
most vigorous and the most intellectually active 
period of his long and laborious life. Four years 
later he put those beliefs into practice. 



1 62 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

Let us summarize those beliefs: I. No form o. 
government is prescribed in Scripture binding per- 
petually on all Churches. 2. Episcopal government 
is agreeable to Scripture and the practice of the 
primitive Church. 3. Uninterrupted succession of 
series of episcopally ordained bishops from the days 
of the apostles is a fable. 4. There are not three 
distinct and divinely constituted orders in the Chris- 
tian ministry. 5. Bishops and presbyters are essen- 
tially one and the same order. 6. Presbyters, by 
virtue of their order, have inherent right to perform 
all the functions of a bishop — to baptize, administer 
the Lord's Supper, and to ordain. 7. John Wesley 
was a presbyter; he therefore had the same inherent 
right to ordain as to administer the Lord's Supper. 

We may now consider another array of facts. 
For many years prior to the ordination of Dr. Coke, 
Mr. Wesley was importuned by the preachers in 
America to send them ordained ministers who 
might administer the ordinances of religion to the 
thousands who were like sheep in the wilderness. 
For legal reasons Mr. Wesley refused. The colonies 
were under the spiritual jurisdiction of the Bishop 
of London. Respect for the canons of his Church 
and for the most ancient canons of the universal 
Church, as those of Niceae and Antioch, restrained 
him from violating the rights lawfully held by an- 
other. But the condition of the Methodists in 
America grew worse. The situation was becoming 



EPISCOPAL ORDINATION OF DR. COKE. 163 

critical ; strife, schism, and other evils were begin- 
ning to undermine the marvelous work of God. 
The future of Methodism was full of anxiety and 
gloom. Mr. Wesley was again appealed to, for to 
him the Methodists looked as the only one whom 
all would obey. In his profound solicitude for the 
sheep without a shepherd he addressed two letters 
to Dr. Lowth, Bishop of London, requesting him 
to ordain even one preacher who might minister to 
the necessities of the people. The only reply he 
received was, " There are three ministers in that 
country already." Wesley answered : " What are 
three to watch over all the souls in that extensive 
country? ... I mourn for poor America, for the 
sheep scattered up and down therein. Part of them 
have no shepherds at all, particularly in the north- 
ern colonies ; and the case of the rest is little better, 
for their own shepherds pity them not." 

As the American colonies, through the obstinacy 
of George III, were lost forever to the English 
crown, so through the short-sighted policy of the 
Anglican bishops and the favor of Heaven the 
Methodists of the United States were forever lost 
to the Church of England. 

The triumph of the American arms in the war for 
independence dissolved all ecclesiastical bonds that 
united the colonial Church to Anglican authority. 
The jurisdiction formerly maintained was lost ; the 
Church itself became extinct. This providential 



164 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

state of affairs left Wesley no alternative. What- 
ever reasons he might have alleged years before for 
refraining from ordaining helpers were baseless now. 
The way was cleared for him, by a providential chain 
of events over which he had no control, to exercise 
the inherent rights he possessed to provide for these 
people, and that without violating either the laws of 
his country or invading the jurisdiction of the Eng- 
lish bishops. The time had come for him to act, 
and he resolved to delay no longer. Here, then, are 
the two reasons for this momentous event — the be- 
liefs of Wesley, and the extraordinary demands 
made upon him. These two conditions met ; what 
was the outcome ? 

In February, 1784, Mr. Wesley held a private 
conference with the Rev. Thomas Coke, LL.D., a 
presbyter of the Church of England, whose gifts, 
grace, and usefulness had already distinguished him 
among Methodist preachers and had commended 
him to Mr. Wesley as a suitable person to take care 
of the difficult and responsible work beyond the 
sea. In his private chamber Wesley introduced the 
subject in substance as follows : 

That, as the revolution in America had separated the United 
States from the mother country forever, and the episcopal es- 
tablishment was utterly abolished, the societies had been rep- 
resented to him in a most deplorable condition. That an ap- 
peal had also been made to him through Mr. Asbury, in which 
he was .requested to provide for them some mode of Church 
government suited to their exigencies ; and that, having long 



EPISCOPAL ORDINATION OF DR. COKE. 1 65 

and seriously revolved the subject in his thoughts, he intended 
to adopt the plan which he was now about to unfold. That, as he 
had invariably, in every step he had taken, to keep as closely to the 
Bible as possible, so, on the present occasion, he hoped he was 
not about to deviate from it. That, keeping his eye upon the 
conduct of the primitive Churches in the ages of unadulterated 
Christianity, he had much admired the mode of ordaining bish- 
ops which the Church of Alexandria had practiced. That, to 
preserve its purity, that Church would never suffer the interfer- 
ence of a foreign bishop in any of their ordinations ; but that 
the presbyters of that venerable apostolic Church, on the death 
of a bishop, exercised the right of ordaining another from their 
own body by the laying on of their own hands; and that this prac- 
tice continued among them for two hundred years, till the clays 
of Dionysius. And finally, that, being himself a presbyter, he 
wished Dr. Coke to accept ordination from his hands, and to 
proceed in that character to the continent of America to super- 
intend the societies in the United States. 1 

This proposition was listened to with surprise and 

received with hesitation. Dr. Coke frankly expressed 

his doubts as to Wesley's authority to confer valid 

ordination. Wesley referred him to the arguments 

of Lord King, and gave him time for deliberation. 

In less than two months Dr. Coke informed Mr. 

Wesley that he was ready to receive ordination at his 

hands and to cooperate with him in the great work : 

Honored and Dear Sir : The more maturely I consider 
the subject the more expedient it appears to me that the power 
of ordaining others should be received by me from you, by the 
imposition of your hands. 2 

The result was that Wesley wrote Dr. Coke to 
come to Bristol and to bring with him the Rev. 

1 Drew, Life of Dr. Coke, pp. 71, 72. 

2 Moore, Life of Wesley, vol. ii, p. 276. 



1 66 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

Mr. Creighton, a regularly ordained presbyter of the 
Church of England. Accordingly, the doctor and 
Mr. Creighton met him at Bristol. With their assist- 
ance he ordained Mr. Richard Whatcoat and Mr. 
Thomas Vasey presbyters for America; and, being 
peculiarly attached to every rite of the Church of 
England, did afterward ordain Dr. Coke a superin- 
tendent, giving him letters of ordination under his 
hand and seal. 1 

The ordination, it may be affirmed, was according 
to the ritual prepared by Mr. Wesley for the 
Methodists in America. Wesley was " peculiarly 
attached to every rite of the Church of England." 
The Book of Common Prayer used by that Church 
was adapted by him — he having, as he wrote in the 
Preface, made " little alteration " in it — to the re- 
quirements of the American Church. This Book 
of Common Prayer, under the title, The Sunday 
Service of the Methodists in the United States of 
A.merica, with Other Occasional Services, was 
brought by Dr. Coke to the first General Confer- 
ence and adopted by the Methodist Episcopal 
Church then organized. The Preface to this Sun- 
day Service, signed by John Wesley, is dated " Bris- 
tol, September 9, 1784," that is, seven days after 
the ordination of Dr. Coke. This Service con- 
tained forms for the ordination of superintend- 
ent, elders, and deacons, similar to the ordination 

1 Coke and Moore, Life of Wesley, p. 459. 



EPISCOPAL ORDINATION OF DR. COKE. 1 67 

forms of the English Prayer Book. For the word 
" bishop " in that book Wesley substituted its Latin 
equivalent superintendent, and for "priests" he 
used the word " elders." 

Of the letters of ordination above mentioned the 
following is a faithfully transcribed copy by Mr. 
Drew from the original in Mr. Wesley's own hand- 
writing: 

To All to whom these presents shall come, John 
Wesley, late Fellow of Lincoln College in Oxford, 
Presbyter of the Church of England, sendeth 
GREETING : Whereas many of the people in the southern 
provinces of North America, who desire to continue under my 
care and still adhere to the doctrine and discipline of the 
Church of England, are greatly distressed for want of minis- 
ters to administer the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's 
Supper, according to the usage of the same Church, and 
whereas there does not appear to be any other way of supply- 
ing them with ministers, know all men that I, John Wesley, 
think myself to be providentially called at this time to set apart 
some persons for the work of the ministry in America. And 
therefore, under the protection of Almighty God and with a 
single eye to his glory, I have this day set apart as a superin- 
tendent by the imposition of my hands and prayer (being as- 
sisted by other ordained ministers) Thomas Coke, Doctor of 
Civil Law, a presbyter of the Church of England and a man 
whom I judge to be well qualified for that great work. And I 
do hereby recommend him to all whom it may concern as a 
fit person to preside over the flock of Christ. In testimony 
whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal this second day 
of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hun- 
dred and eighty-four. John Wesley. ' 

Over two weeks elapsed before Dr. Coke, with 
his companions, sailed for the United States. Dur- 



1 68 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

ing this interval Mr. Wesley prepared the following 
letter, which Dr. Coke was directed to print and cir- 
culate among the societies on his arrival : 

Bristol, September 10, 1784. 

To Dr. Coke, Mr. Asbury, and our Brethren in 
North America : By a very uncommon train of providences 
many of the provinces of North America are totally disjoined 
from the mother country and erected into independent States. 
The English government has no authority over them, either 
civil or ecclesiastical, any more than over the States of Holland. 
A civil authority is exercised over them, partly by the Congress, 
partly by the provincial assemblies. But no one either exer- 
cises or claims any ecclesiastical authority at all. In this pe- 
culiar situation some thousands of the inhabitants of these 
States desire my advice, and in compliance with their desire I 
have drawn up a little sketch. 

Lord King's account of the primitive Church convinced me 
many years ago that bishops and presbyters are the same order 
and have consequently the same right to ordain. For many years 
I have been importuned, from time to time, to exercise this right 
by ordaining part of our traveling preachers. But I have still 
refused, not only for peace' sake, but because I was determined 
as little as possible to violate the established order of the 
national Church to which I belonged. 

But the case is widely different between England and North 
America. Here there are bishops who have a legal jurisdic- 
tion. In America there are none, neither any parish minister; 
so that for some hundreds of miles together there is none either 
to baptize or to administer the Lord's Supper. Here, there- 
fore, my scruples are at an end, and I conceive myself at full 
liberty, as I> violate no order and invade no man's right by 
appointing and sending laborers into the harvest. 

I have accordingly appointed Dr. Coke and Mr. Francis 
Asbury to be joint superintendents over our brethren in North 
America ; as also Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey to 
act as elders among them, by baptizing and administering the 
Lord's Supper. And I have prepared a liturgy, little differing 



EPISCOPAL ORDINATION OF DR. COKE. 1 69 

from that of the Church of England (I think the best consti- 
tuted national Church in the world), which I advise all the 
traveling preachers to use on the Lord's day in all the congre- 
gations, reading the Litany only on Wednesdays and Fridays, 
and praying extempore on all other days. I also advise the 
elders to administer the Supper of the Lord on every Lord's 
day. 

If anyone will point a more rational and scriptural way of 
feeding and guiding these poor sheep in the wilderness I will 
gladly embrace it. At present I cannot see any better method 
than that I have taken. 

It has, indeed, been proposed to desire the English bishops 
to ordain part of our preachers for America. But to this I ob- 
ject: 1. I desired the Bishop of London to ordain one, but 
could not prevail. 2. If they consented we know the slowness 
of their proceedings ; but the matter admits of no delay. 3. If 
they would ordain them now they would expect to govern 
them. And how grievously would this entangle us ! 4. As 
our American brethren are now totally disentangled, both 
from the State and the English hierarchy, we dare not entangle 
them again either with the one or the other. They are now at 
full liberty simply to follow the Scriptures and the primitive 
Church. And we judge it best that they should stand fast in 
that liberty wherewith God has so strangely made them free. 

John Wesley. 

Thus was completed the act which had been con- 
templated by Wesley for years. 

Anglican writers here step in and assert that 
Wesley did not intend to formally ordain Dr. 
Coke ; that the service at most was but a solemn 
form of appointment to a special work of a super- 
visory nature. Some Methodist writers, both Eng- 
lish and American, have also ventured a similar 
opinion. But to him who has no preconceived 
theory to sustain, and is desirous only of the truth 



170 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

as that may be reached by patient study of the 
facts, the inevitable question arises, If Mr. Wesley 
did not intend to ordain Dr. Coke to the episcopal 
office why all this hesitation, deliberation, dis- 
cussion, study of Scripture, and prolonged research 
in Church history and practice of primitive times? 
Simply to find out whether a man could be sent on 
a tour of inspection ? If, after all this searching of 
the Scriptures, this study of King and Stillingfleet, 
these discussions in Conferences, and these letters 
to his brother and friends, Wesley intended to ap- 
point Dr. Coke only to an office such as a presiding 
eldership or a secretaryship, then truly the moun- 
tains were in labor and a ridiculous mouse was 
born. 

Dr. Coke was already a presbyter and had power 
to administer the sacraments without any authority 
from Wesley. But Wesley ordained him. To what, 
then, could he ordain if not for the episcopal office? 
Why was Mr. Creighton, a regular presbyter in 
the English Church, invited to assist in the cere- 
mony with other ordained elders? Wesley gave 
Coke authority to consecrate Francis Asbury to 
the same office with himself, and provided him 
and his successors for that service with a form of 
ordination taken from the Ordinal of the Church of 
England. But why ordain Asbury to this office if 
Coke was not ordained ? Are we to suppose that 
Mr. Wesley would send a presbyter to America 



EPISCOPAL ORDINATION OF DR. COKE. 171 

with letters of episcopal orders in his pocket, 
with a form for ordaining others to the same office, 
and with a commission to really ordain others, if he 
had not conferred authority upon that presbyter ? 
Let us look a little closer. Dr. Coke ordained Mr. 
Asbury three times. Now, if the setting apart of 
Dr. Coke was not an ordination in the true mean- 
ing of that term, how could Coke's ordination of 
Mr. Asbury the third time make him a bishop, as 
he was understood to be, and so accepted, by 
all the ministers present at the Christmas Confer- 
ence when they formed themselves into the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church ? Again, if Coke's ordina- 
tion of Asbury the third time did not make him a 
bishop, how could Coke's ordination of him the first 
time, or the second time, make him a deacon or an 
elder? If the second ordination made him an 
elder, what did the third make him ? He who had 
the power to ordain him to one degree had the 
power to ordain him to all three degrees. If he 
could not ordain to all three, then clearly he could 
not ordain him to any. If Asbury, then, was not 
a bishop by virtue of his third ordination, then he 
was not an elder or a deacon by virtue of his first 
or second ordination. The validity of all three 
rests on the fact that Dr. Coke was himself for- 
mally ordained to the episcopal office. 

That Mr. Wesley deliberately intended to conse- 
crate Dr. Coke to the office of a bishop— there is no 



172 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

need to contend about names, since all are agreed 
that superintendent, bishop, overseer signify the 
same thing — is demonstrable from the following : 

I. In the letter of ordination given to Dr. Coke 
Mr. Wesley recommends Dr. Coke as a fit person 
" to preside over the flock of Christ." But this is 
the purpose, with all that it implies, for which the 
Church of England ordained bishops. And it must 
be borne in mind that Dr. Coke was to preside 
over those who still desired to adhere to the " doc- 
trine and discipline of the Church of England," a 
Church which had become extinct in the United 
States, but the form of government of which, modi- 
fied by the practice and ideas of the primitive 
Church, Wesley desired they should still maintain. 

2. At the close of his letter to Dr.Coke, Mr. Asbury, 
etc., Wesley writes, " They are now at full liberty 
simply to follow the Scriptures and the primitive 
Church." The teaching of Scripture, according to 
Wesley's understanding, was that bishops and pres- 
byters were of the same essential order, and that 
therefore presbyters had inherent right to ordain. 
The practice of the primitive Church, as he had 
learned from Lord King, was a modified episcopacy. 
This the Methodists were to follow if they chose. 

3. Wesley on these same grounds believed himself 
to be, not an English or a Roman bishop, but a truly 
scriptural bishop ; and therefore, so far as the essence 
of the idea of episcopacy was concerned, and not 



EPISCOPAL ORDINATION OF DR. COKE. 1 73 

the unessential accidents of the same, he affirmed 
himself to be as really a bishop as any in England 
or the world. As such he claimed the power, as 
he asserted in a letter to his brother Charles, to 
exercise the functions of an irrloKOTTog. Referring 
to Coke's ordination, he expressly declares in the 
Conference Minutes of 1786: " Judging this to be a 
case of real necessity, I took a step which, for peace 
and quietness, I had refrained from taking for many 
years — I exercised that power which I am fully per- 
suaded the great Shepherd and Bishop of the Church 
has given me." But why should he refrain to appoint 
to a mere supervisory office ? Was this all that the 
great Shepherd and Bishop had given him ? There 
was no law against that. He himself had been act- 
ing as sole bishop from the beginning, and Asbury 
had been for years exercising the office of superin- 
tendent or general assistant with his consent. 

4. That he did intend to consecrate Coke bishop 
is further seen from his conversation with Dr. Coke 
prior to the ordination. Dr. Coke represents him 
as saying that he " had much admired the mode of 
ordaining bishops which the Church of Alexandria 
had practiced ; . . . that the presbyters of that 
venerable apostolic Church, on the death of a bishop, 
exercised the right of ordaining another from their 
own body by the laying on of their own hands ; . . . 
that, being himself a presbyter, he wished Dr. Coke 

to accept ordination from his hands and to proceed 
12 



174 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

in that character to the continent of America to 
superintend the societies in the United States." But 
what possible connection can anyone see between 
this reference to the mode of making bishops in 
the Alexandrian Church as a ground for proposed 
action and a mere appointment or assignment to a 
temporary office? Why should Dr. Coke doubt 
Wesley's authority to appoint him to an office? He 
had assigned him to particular duties before, and 
Dr. Coke never seems to have had any doubt of his 
authority to do so. Further, why should it take 
Dr. Coke nearly two months to be convinced that 
Wesley really had the authority to assign him to an 
office ? And, again, when it finally did penetrate 
his intellect that Wesley could really appoint a 
preacher to an office, why was Coke so dull of 
comprehension that he should write to Mr. Wesley, 
" The more maturely I consider the subject the 
more expedient it appears to me that the power of 
ordaining others should be received by me from you 
by the imposition of your hands ?" What relation 
has all this to a mere appointment to an office ? 
And lastly, why should Mr. Wesley take advantage 
of this deplorable ignorance and misapprehension of 
Thomas Coke, Doctor of Civil Law, to set him apart 
to a mere temporary office, when Dr. Coke, on the 
strength of previous interviews and study, imagined 
all the while that he was being ordained bishop as 
a bishop in the Alexandrian Church was ordained 



EPISCOPAL ORDINATION OF DR. COKE. 1 75 

by the Alexandrian presbyters ? Did Wesley in- 
tend to deceive Coke ? Or was Coke so stupid that 
he did not understand Wesley ? Or did he wickedly 
distort, pervert, and falsify Wesley's words and 
thus, impelled by unhallowed ambition, usurp epis- 
copal authority? Surely a denial of the episcopal 
ordination of Dr. Coke involves more than we care 
to maintain. 

Some writers endeavor to evade the difficulties 
by suggesting that Coke desired some special au- 
thority but no real episcopal ordination. Tyer- 
man, for example, says : " Wesley meant the cere- 
mony to be a mere formality, likely to recommend 
his delegate to the favor of the Methodists in Amer- 
ica." But this is no explanation of the interview 
between Coke and Wesley relating to the ordination 
of bishops by presbyters in the Alexandrian Church. 
And if it is true what Tyerman, in the teeth of all 
the facts, says was all that Wesley meant, what, then, 
did Wesley further mean by sending forms for or- 
daining superintendents, elders, and deacons by this 
same delegate ? Were such ordinations, beginning 
with Asbury's, to be merely a repetition of the same 
formality for the purpose of commending Asbury 
and other ministers to their own people? 

Such explanations, it is evident, explain nothing. 
We are hemmed in by the logic of facts. Either 
W T esley did intend to consecrate Coke to the epis- 
copacy and Coke did so understand him, or we 



1/6 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

must admit both the duplicity of Wesley and the 
stupidity of Coke. But Dr. Coke was not the only 
stupid person. Charles Wesley, Asbury, and all 
the American preachers suffered at the same time 
from the same form of delusion. John Wesley 
not only deceived Coke, he deceived his brother 
Charles Wesley, also Mr. Moore, Dr. Adam Clarke, 
Rev. Richard Watson, the ministry of the Church 
of England, and the whole world — and for what ? 

We may now inquire, Did Dr. Coke purposely 
misconstrue the act of Wesley in setting him apart 
to the office of a superintendent or bishop ? What 
are the facts that will help us in reaching the truth 
in this matter? Let us consider the following 
grouping of facts : 

First. The Rev. Dr. Coke arrived in the United 
States in due time and communicated his mission. 
The preachers of the Methodist societies were called 
to meet in General Conference at Baltimore. The 
Conference opened December 24. In open session 
the letter of Mr. Wesley to Dr. Coke, Mr. Asbury, 
etc., was read, and the Methodist societies, by the 
unanimous vote of the preachers present, were 
formed into one organization, the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church. The Minutes of that Conference 
state that this was done in accordance with the 
advice of Mr. Wesley. Dr. Coke was received as 
superintendent or bishop by the Conference, that 
body being fully satisfied respecting the validity of 



EPISCOPAL ORDINATION OF DR. COKE. I 77 

his ''episcopal orders." The Book of Sunday 
Service was adopted. Dr. Coke then ordained 
Francis Asbury, first deacon, then elder or presby- 
ter, and then superintendent or bishop, according 
to the forms of ordination which Wesley had given 
him and which had been adopted by the General 
Conference assembled. 

Second. The Conference closed January 1, 1785. 
The Minutes of the Conference were published by 
Dr. Coke, under the title The General Minutes of 
the Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
On June 3, 1785, Dr. Coke sailed for England, 
and was present with Mr. Wesley at the next 
session of the British Conference in London. The 
General Minutes Dr. Coke took with him to En- 
gland and had them reprinted under Mr. Wesley's 
own eye. In those Minutes it was stated what 
had been done at the Conference in Baltimore, 
who had been ordained, and the fact that the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church had been organized with 
Mr. Wesley's consent and by his provision: " Fol- 
lowing the counsel of Mr. John Wesley, who rec- 
ommended the episcopal mode of Church govern- 
ment, we thought it best to become an episcopal 
Church." Against that declaration Mr. Wesley 
uttered no protest. The Minutes were published 
with his sanction. 1 How, then, could Dr. Coke 

1 On this whole subject see Emory's Defense of Our Fathers, 
PP. 73. 74- 



1/8 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

have misconstrued, intentionally or otherwise, the 
act of Mr. Wesley, when Wesley approves all that 
Dr. Coke had done as the result of that act ? 

Third. Charles Wesley, having heard what had 
been done in America, spoke of " Dr. Coke's Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church " with alarm mingled with 
disdain, and referred with natural High Church 
amazement to his " brother's consecration of a 
bishop." Surely now, if ever, Mr. Wesley will 
speak out and declare that his ordination of Dr. 
Coke was misinterpreted ; that he did not ■" ordain " 
him, but only " set him apart ; " did not commission 
him by virtue of that act to so ordain others ; did 
not furnish a revision of the Anglican Ordinal for 
use in such ordinations : and did not desire or in- 
tend the organization of the Methodists in America 
on the basis of Scripture and the practice of the 
primitive Church. Mr. Wesley did nothing of the 
kind. His only reply was, " Dr. Coke did nothing 
rashly." But how could he have said this if Dr. 
Coke had misinterpreted his act, if Coke had played 
Prometheus to Wesley's fire ? Dr. Coke was himself 
attacked. His reply was that he had done nothing 
without the authority of Mr. Wesley. No one will 
imagine that Wesley would have permitted the 
American Minutes to have been published without 
some protest, or allowed the misapprehension con- 
cerning the ordination of Dr. Coke to go without 
correction, unless he had done all that he was sup- 



EPISCOPAL ORDINATION OF DR. COKE. I 79 

posed to have done, namely, ordain by solemn rite 
the Rev. Thomas Coke to the office of a bishop. 
Such is the testimony of the records. 

This is also the official declaration of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church. In her Book of Discipline 
the following statement was published, first by 
those who organized the Church, in 1789, and was 
continued in the same book through all her history 
till recent editions. In the year 1784 Mr. Wesley 
sent over three regularly ordained clergy ; but, 
preferring the episcopal mode of Church govern- 
ment to any other, he solemnly set apart, by the 
imposition of his hands and prayer, one of them, 
namely, Thomas Coke, Doctor of Civil Law, late of 
Jesus College, in the University of Oxford, and a 
presbyter of the Church of England, for the episcopal 
office ; and, having delivered to him letters of epis- 
copal orders, commissioned and directed him to set 
apart Francis Asbury, then general assistant of the 
Methodist Society in America, for the same episco- 
pal office ; he, the said Francis Asbury, being first 
ordained deacon and elder. ... At which time the 
General Conference held at Baltimore did unani- 
mously receive the said Thomas Coke and Francis 
Asbury as their bishops, being fully satisfied of the 
validity of their episcopal ordination." 

Literature : Emory's Defense of Our Fathers; 
Stevens's History of Methodism, vol. ii ; Wesley's 
Works, vols, vi, vii ; Sutcliffe's Short Memoirs of 



l8o THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

Thomas Coke, LL.D.; Coke and Asbury's notes 
to the Discipline, 1798; Crowther's Portraiture of 
Methodism, 2d English ed. ; Atkinson's Centennial 
History of Americayi Methodism ; Neely's Evolution 
of Episcopacy ; McTyeire's History of Methodism, 
vol. i ; Watson's, Moore's, Coke and Moore's, 
Tyerman's lives of Wesley ; Coke's Journals; 
Asbury's Journal, 



THE AUTHORITY OF WESLEY 



CHAPTER X. 
The Authority of "Wesley* 

HAVING clearly ascertained by means of histor- 
ical records the intention of Mr. Wesley in set- 
ting apart the Rev. Dr. Coke to the episcopal office, 
the way is now open for us to examine Mr. Wesley's 
authority for that act. 

Let this be premised. Methodist orders are not 
based, nor are they dependent for their validity, 
on any supposed power of order derived through 
uninterrupted episcopal succession. Such succes- 
sion was denied and repudiated by the founders of 
Episcopal Methodism, as it was by the founders of the 
Church of England. And it must now be conceded, 
if historical facts determine anything, that it is im- 
possible to establish the theory of an unbroken 
series of prelatical bishops by divine right in the 
Christian Church from the days of the apostles. In 
support of this statement there is no need to imitate 
the uncritical and unsatisfactory arguments of those 
who place undue emphasis on the difficulty of as- 
certaining who were the immediate successors of the 
apostles in the Western Church. For, while it may 
be shown that there is no unanimity of opinion in 
this matter among the earliest writers — Irenaeus, 



Io2 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

Tertullian, Eusebius, Origen, Epiphanius, Damasus, 
Jerome, Rufinus, all differing among themselves in 
greater or less degree — the fact nevertheless remains 
that some one did succeed them in caring for 
the flock of Christ. Whether he was a bishop in 
the modern sense, rather than a pastor of a con- 
gregation or a president of a body of pastors, is 
wholly another question. He certainly was not. 

On modern Anglican principles the validity of 
Anglican orders depends on the validity and un- 
broken continuity of the succession in the Roman 
Church. There is, however, no record of bishops in 
the Churches of Britain for five hundred and ninety- 
six years, until the reestablishment of Christianity 
there by Augustine. In order to avoid Rome, an 
attempt is made to derive succession from Ephesus 
by making it appear that the Bishop of Aries, who 
consecrated Augustine, had been consecrated him- 
self by a successor of those who succeeded the bishops 
appointed by the apostle John. But Aries was in the 
jurisdiction of Rome as far back as the days of Ire- 
naeus. Augustine was sent by Rome, and through 
Rome he received episcopal authority. 1 The Ephe- 
sian succession is a myth invented by the necessities 
of the historic episcopate theory. To Rome at last 
Anglicans must trace their lineage. The historical 
fact is that up to the time of the Reformation out 
of sixty-eight archbishops of Canterbury several were 

1 See Alzog's Universal Church History, English translation. 



THE AUTHORITY OF WESLEY. 1 S3 

consecrated by Roman popes. Chicheley, Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, was consecrated by John 
XXIII. This pope had been for some time a con- 
testant for the papal throne, was deposed after great 
scandal, and all his acts declared null and void. But 
Chicheley, whom he had consecrated to the see of 
Canterbury, continued to confer orders, making 
bishops and presbyters for thirty years in the English 
Church. Other instances will occur to the student 
of ecclesiastical history. 

But what evidence is there that Rome is in pos- 
session of a valid succession ? Whatever Anglican 
writers may do, Roman theologians are too skillful, 
as, for instance, Cardinal Newman, to risk the au- 
thority of their ministry on mere chronological 
tables. Lists of popes and bishops displayed with 
all the ingenuity of the printer's art may impose 
upon the uninformed, but they can have no influ- 
ence on the judgment of those who have even but 
a slight knowledge of the turmoils and agitations 
and fierce conflicts surging for centuries around the 
throne of Peter. The truth is, neither the Eastern nor 
the Western Church rely upon such evidences, for 
it is well known that, even if there were no breaks in 
the chronological series, the validity of the episcopal 
ordinations recorded would thereby be in no wise 
guaranteed. Serial succession is by no means a 
synonym for valid or apostolical succession. Lay- 
men have been made bishops without ordination to 



1 84 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

lower grades. Eucberius was only a layman when 
made Bishop of Lyons; Philogonius of Antioch was 
transferred from a judgeship to the episcopacy; 
Cyprian was but a neophyte when made Bishop of 
Carthage ; so also Ambrose of Milan, and Nectarius 
of Constantinople. In 784 Tarasius was conse- 
crated to the see of Constantinople,, though but a lay- 
man, and he ordained bishops and presbyters. Pope 
John XIX in 1024, while a layman, was elected pope, 
and he ordained bishops and archbishops. The 
Duke of Savoy, a layman, was made pope (or anti- 
pope) in 1439, an d consecrated many to the epis- 
copal office. Augustine was ordained Bishop of 
Hippo while the bishop of that see was living and 
had not resigned. Photius of Constantinople was 
deposed and his acts made of none effect, although 
he had in the space of nine years ordained many 
bishops. Bishop Vigilius was put by the renowned 
Belisarius in the see of Rome, in the place of Bishop 
Silverius, while Silverius was yet living, where- 
by the validity of the ordination of eighty-one 
bishops and forty-six presbyters whom Silverius or- 
dained was destroyed, for the reason that there 
could not be two bishops in one see. Similar record 
might be made of Eugenius IV; of the antipope Gui- 
bert, and of the four antipopes between A. D. 
1 1 59 and 1 1 82. Pope John VIII degraded For- 
mosus from his bishopric and reduced him to the 
condition of a layman. Formosus afterward at- 



THE AUTHORITY OF WESLEY. 1 85 

tained to the papal chair and ordained Phlegmund 
to the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury, who, for 
the thirty-two years he held that see, ordained many 
bishops for the English Church. But Formosus 
was deposed and condemned after his death by 
Pope Stephen VII, and also by Pope Sergius, and 
all his acts made null and void. 

The history of the numerous schisms in the 
Church of Rome, some twenty-six in number, is 
familiar to the student of history. To suppose that 
for an absolute certainty there were no breaks in 
the even flow of episcopal authority during these 
conflicts may be reckless, but such supposition 
would not be regarded as either wise or strong. We 
have but to think of those fierce commotions, in 
which all wrongs, crimes, disreputable deeds, and 
uncanonical acts were possible to both parties, to 
comprehend how difficult it must be to maintain any- 
thing approaching to certainty in the matter of valid 
succession. Witness the struggle for the supremacy 
between Cornelius and Novatian in A. D. 251 ; Li- 
beritis and Felix in 355 ; Damasus and Ursicinus, 
settled in 381 ; Boniface I and Eulalius in 418 ; 
Symmachus and Laurentius in 498 ; Boniface II 
and Dioscorus in 530; Silverius and Vigilius ; Bene- 
dict VIII and his rival, Gregory; the tumults and 
schisms incident to the struggle for the papacy 
which disgraced the pontificates of John XVIII, 
Benedict IX, Gregory VI, and Clement II; the 



1 86 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

recriminations of the rival popes during the Great 
Schism of seventy years ; the scandals occasioned 
by the rivalries of Benedict XIII, of Spain, Gregory 
XII, of France, and John XXIII, of Italy, each 
claiming to be the lawful successor of St. Peter, and 
each ordaining bishops and other clergy. The Re- 
formers repudiated the succession for the English 
Church ; and, with all history to appeal to, Wesley 
might well say, " Uninterrupted succession I know 
to be a fable which no man ever did or can prove." 

Methodist orders, then, are in no sense founded 
on the mythical theory of tactual succession. Upon 
what, then, did Mr. Wesley base his authority? Mr. 
Wesley appealed for his authority in ordaining Dr. 
Coke to Holy Scripture, to the practice of the 
primitive Church, to the call of the Church, and to 
the necessity of the circumstances. Let us con- 
sider in particular some of these grounds: 

First y the appeal to Scripture. Mr. Wesley was a 
presbyter, and therefore, according to the New 
Testament, possessed the inherent right to ordain. 
In the New Testament we find two classes of men 
set apart by apostolic authority to the work of the 
ministry. The one class is named didnovoi, deacons, 
ministers, the other Mokotxoi, overseers, bishops, su- 
perintendents (Acts xx, 28) ; ol npoioTdfjievoL, presidents 
(Rom. xii, 8 ; I Thess. v, 12) ; ol r\yov\itvoi, leaders, 
governors (Heb. xiii, 7, 17, 24); ol -nozofivTEpoi, 
presbyters, elders, seniors (Acts xx, if). These titles, 



THE AUTHORITY OF WESLEY. 1 87 

with the exception of ScaKovoi, all indicate one and 
the same order or office, that of bishop or elder. 
The exact truth is, there is but one order, the minis- 
terial order, as distinguished from the laity. All 
distinctive names, as deacon, elder, bishop, are but 
different offices in that one ministerial order. The 
terms " bishop/' " presbyter," " elder," "overseer," 
met with in the New Testament, are all interchange- 
able, and do not indicate two orders, one superior to 
the other and different in nature,but one and the same 
order. This will be clear by comparing Acts xx, 17, 
with verse 28. The apostle Paul called the presby- 
ters, elders, npeapvrepoi, of the Church of Ephesus 
to meet him at Miletus. When they came he ex- 
horted them, saying, " Take heed to yourselves and 
to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath 
made you bishops, overseers, tTrlofeonoi, to feed the 
Church of God which he hath purchased with his 
own blood." Here those who were called presby- 
ters in one verse are designated as bishops in 
another. In the Epistle to Titus the apostle 
writes : " For this cause I left thee in Crete, that 
thou shouldest set in order the things that are want- 
ing, and ordain presbyters in every city, as I had ap- 
pointed thee." And, having stated the requisite 
qualifications of presbyters, he gives reasons for 
care, because he says, "A bishop must be blame- 
less." In 1 Tim. iii, 1-10, the apostle recognizes only 
two offices in the Church, the episcopate and the 



1 83 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

diaconate, for the reason that bishop and presbyter 
were of the one and the same order. This is seen 
also in the Epistle to the Philippians, where bishops 
and deacons are mentioned together. We never 
find bishops, presbyters, and deacons in the New 
Testament. In I Peter v, 1-3, the apostle exhorts 
the presbyters to shepherd the flock of God, exer- 
cising the episcopal office (ZmoitG'rrovvTeg) over them. 
The term " bishop " belongs to the Gentile Chris- 
tian element, while its New Testament synonym 
" elder " is almost always used by the Hebrew 
Christians. " It is worth noting," says Bannerman, 1 
" that when these epistles — that to the Philippians 
and the pastoral epistles — came to be translated 
into Aramaic for Hebrew Christians, who still used, 
at least by preference, their ancient speech, the 
term tmoKortoq was invariably rendered by ka- 
sliisho or ' elder,' and emottoirrj, ' a bishop's office,' 
kasliisJikiits or ' eldership.' " 

The qualifications for a bishop and a presbyter 
are the same. Compare I Tim. iii, 2-7, and Titus 
i, 6-9. Their duties and their authority are the 
same. Compare Heb. xiii, 7, 17, 1 Thess. v, 12, 1 Tim. 
v, 17, Acts xx, 28, and 1 Peter v, 1-3. Indeed, it 
is now conceded by nearly all parties that in the 
New Testament there is no difference between a 
bishop and a presbyter. Presbyters, therefore, had 
the inherent right to ordain ; they did all that 

1 Scripture Doctrine of the Church, p. 409. 



THE AUTHORITY OF WESLEY. 1 89 

is now done by bishops, and this is acknowledged 
by competent scholars, even among those who con- 
tend for the divine right of episcopacy : "In the 
earliest times, when no formal distinction between 
eniOKOTiOt, bishops, and 7rpeo0vrepoi y presbyters, had 
taken place, the presbyters, especially the TrpoeoT&rer, 
presiding bishops (1 Tim. v, 17), discharged those 
episcopal functions which afterward, when a careful 
distinction of ecclesiastical officers had been made, 
they were not permitted to discharge otherwise 
than as substitutes or vicars of a bishop." ' 

The earliest Christian writers, like the New 
Testament, know no distinction in order, power, or 
authority between bishops and presbyters. Clement 
of Rome, in his epistle to the Corinthians, mentions 
presbyters and deacons, but does not know any 
other office. Polycarp exhorts the Philippians to 
obey the presbyters and deacons, but makes no 
reference to a bishop, which in the nature of the 
circumstances he must have made had the episco- 
pal office been distinct from the eldership. Justin 
Martyr mentions only two orders, of which episco- 
pacy is not one. Irenaeus, writing against Gnostic 
heretics, is also in evidence that even at that date 
bishops and presbyters were the same as to order : 
" When we summon them [the heretics] to that 
tradition which is from the apostles, and which is 

1 Riddle's Christian Antiquities, p. 233. See also Hatch's Or- 
ganization of Early Christian Churches, and L.ightfoot on the 
Epistle to the Philippians. 
13 



190 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

guarded in the Churches by the succession of the 
presbyters, they oppose tradition." ' " Wherefore 
we ought to obey the" presbyters who are in the 
Church, who have the succession from the apostles, 
as we have shown, who, with the succession of the 
■ episcopate — qui cum episcopatus successione — have 
received the same gift of truth according to the 
Father's good pleasure." 2 

Such was the general idea of the Church imme- 
diately after the apostles. For wise reasons a 
change gradually took place, probably first at 
Rome, one of the presbyters being selected by the 
others to preside over the Church and direct its 
affairs. He thus was chosen the presbyter, the 
tmoKOTTog, the bishop. To him were delegated 
certain powers held by all presbyters, and by him 
they were employed only with the consent of all. 
When he died another succeeded in his place. 
This was succession — lineal succession of place, 
not of authority derived from other bishops, but 
from the Church which had already made him 
bishop in the place of the departed. Neighboring 
bishops were called in to sanction, confirm, or recog- 
nize the new chief pastor. In time these bishops 
were considered as necessary to the conveyance of 
certain gifts, powers, and authority, and thus grad- 
ually, by custom of the Church, bishops became a 
distinct order from the presbyters. 

1 Adversus Hcereses, lib. iii, c. 2. 2 Ibid., lib. iv, c. 43. 



THE AUTHORITY OF WESLEY. I9I 

The venerable presbyter John Wesley, going be- 
hind ecclesiastical canons and customs, went back 
to the New Testament and claimed the divine right 
to exercise the power of a presbyter, or scriptural 
bishop, which as such belonged to him by the 
divine authority of the New Testament. This 
authority none can dispute ; higher authority none 
can give. 

Second, the appeal to the practice of the primitive 
Church. But Wesley did not rely solely upon pri- 
vate interpretation of Scripture. The practice and 
teaching of the apostles must have been continued 
for some little time, at least, in the Churches which 
they had founded. To that primitive period of the 
Church Wesley directed his attention, and there 
found, as others had before, those same practices in 
operation which were usual in the days of the 
apostles. History and Scripture interpreted each 
other, both establishing the fact that presbyters 
had inherent right to ordain. This also may now 
be regarded as conceded. Professor Gore, of Ox- 
ford, however, ably defends a contrary view. But, 
with all respect to his eminent abilities, the evi- 
dence is immovably against him. Jerome, than 
whom no one was better versed in the traditions 
and customs of the early Church, distinctly teaches 
as historic fact that through many episcopates in 
the Alexandrian Church " the presbyters always 
called one elected by themselves, and placed in a 



I92 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

higher rank, bishop, just as an army may constitute 
its general, or deacons may elect one of them- 
selves, whom they know to be diligent, and call him 
archdeacon." * The purpose of Jerome is to show 
that in the first period of the Church the presbyters 
had the power of appointing a presiding presbyter, 
who thereby became the bishop over all his college 
of presbyters. Lightfoot a quotes a decree of the 
Council of Ancyra — A. D. 314 — which strongly sup- 
ports this view. According to this ancient de- 
cision neither the x^P^^ * 07101 — country bishops — 
nor city presbyters were to be permitted to ordain 
without permission in writing of the bishop of the 
parish. Without question, if it had not been the 
custom for presbyters to ordain this decree would 
never have been made, for laws are not enacted 
against nonentities, but against existing evils, pos- 
sible evils, or for the limitation of existing rights. 
And it will be observed that the prohibition is not 
against presbyters ordaining, but against their or- 
daining without permission. 

Further testimony that presbyters did ordain is 
given by Eutychius, a patriarch of Alexandria. 
His testimony has been the subject of much con- 
troversy because of its great and conclusive impor- 
tance, but all attempts to explain it away or to 
minimize its value or to weaken its credibility have 
proved utterly futile. Having stated that the evan- 

1 Epistle to Evagrius. ' 2 Commentary on Philippians. 



THE AUTHORITY OF WESLEY. 1 93 

gelist Mark preached in Alexandria and founded the 

Church there, appointing one Hananias as its first 

patriarch, Eutychius continues : ' 

Moreover, he appointed twelve presbyters with Hananias, 
who were to remain with the patriarch, so that when the pa- 
triarchate was vacant they might elect one of the twelve pres- 
byters, upon whose head the other eleven might place their 
hands and bless him and create him patriarch, and then 
choose some excellent man and appoint him presbyter with 
themselves in the place of him who was thus made patriarch, 
that thus there might always be twelve. Nor did this custom 
respecting the presbyters, namely, that they should create their 
patriarchs from the twelve presbyters, cease at Alexandria until 
the times of Alexander, Patriarch of Alexandria, who was of the 
number of the three hundred and eighteen [the bishops of the 
Nicene Council). But he forbade the presbyters to create the 
patriarch for the future, and decreed that when the patriarch was 
dead the bishops should meet and ordain the patriarch ; more- 
over, that on a vacancy of the patriarchate they should elect, 
either from any country, or from the twelve presbyters, or others, 
as circumstances might prescribe, some excellent man and create 
him patriarch. And thus that ancient custom by which the 
patriarch used to be created by the presbyters disappeared, and 
in its place succeeded the ordinance for the creation of the 
patriarch by the bishops. 

Eutychius is not alone in this testimony. Hilary 
the Deacon, supposed author of certain commen- 
taries on the Pauline epistles, notes : 

Moreover, in Egypt the presbyters confirm if a bishop is not 
present. But because the presbyters that followed began to be 
found unworthy to hold the primacy {przmatus) the custom 
was altered, a council providing that not order, but merit, ought 
to make a bishop, and that he should be appointed by the judg- 
ment of many priests. 

1 Origines Ecclesice Alexandrines. Translated by Selden, and 
quoted by Goode, Rule of Faith, vol. ii, p. 255. 



194 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

Augustine, having stated that a bishop is but a 
first presbyter, says : 

And it is base to call a pronotary, or archdeacon, a judge, for 
in Alexandria and through the whole of Egypt the presbyter 
consecrates if the bishop is absent. 1 

The evidence now before us, together with the 
testimony of early Christian writers respecting the 
parity of bishops and presbyters — such testimony, 
in addition to that already given throughout these 
pages, as may be adduced from the works of Ter- 
tullian,* Clement of Alexandria, 3 Eusebius, 4 Cyp- 
rian, Firmilian, 5 Hilary the Deacon, 6 Chrysostom, 7 
Theodoret, 8 and many others — must, in the mind of 
any fair-minded inquirer after historic truth, cer- 
tainly vindicate the appeal of Wesley to the prac- 
tice of the primitive Church. 

Third, the necessity of the case. In further de- 
fense of his action Mr. Wesley, in his letter to " Dr. 
Coke, Mr. Asbury, and our Brethren in North 
America," referred to the religious destitution of the 
thousands in America who looked to him in the 
providence of God as their spiritual guide and chief. 
Serious consideration of the deplorable condition 
of these thousands and the futility of appealing 
further to Anglican bishops left him, as the provi- 
dential leader of the great Methodist movement, no 

1 Queestiones, 191. 2 Apologeticus, c. 39 ; De Corona, c. 3. 

3 Stromata, lib. vi, c. 7. 4 Lib. iii, c. 22. 5 Epistle to Cyprian. 
6 Com. ad Ephesios. 7 Exposit. I Epis. ad Tim., Horn. xi. 

8 Interpret. Epis. ad Phil., also Interpret. Epis. ad Timotheum. 



THE AUTHORITY OF WESLEY. 195 

alternative; the necessity of the case compelled him 
to accept the responsibility which providence had 
placed upon him. If some objector of philosophical 
turn should observe that the providence was of 
Wesley's own making, in that this act of ordi- 
nation was the logical outcome of Wesley's labors 
for many years, and was not therefore necessarily a 
direct providence of God, we may observe, in turn, 
that even if it be granted that that is true, still the 
Lord himself was a helper of Wesley in making this 
providential crisis through all those years, and it was 
therefore as truly from God when it did come as if 
Wesley's labors had not produced it. Wesley knew 
the hour had come in a most extraordinary manner, 
by means of the liberation of the American colonies, 
and he dared not shrink from his manifest duty. 
" Here, therefore," he writes, " my scruples are at 
an end, and I conceive myself at full liberty, as I 
violate no order and invade no man's right by 
appointing and sending laborers into the harvest." 

This appeal to necessity is universally recognized 
as valid. It certainly must be by the Church of 
England and the Protestant Episcopal Church. 
Bishop Burnet, commenting on Article XXIII of 
the English Articles of Religion, states and explains 
the principle: 

Finally, if a company of Christians find the public worship of 
God where they live to be so defiled that they cannot with a 
good conscience join in it, and if they do not know of any 



196 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

place to which they can conveniently go where they may wor- 
ship God purely and in a regular way — if, I say, such a body, 
finding some that have been ordained, though to the lower func- 
tions, should submit itself entirely to their conduct, or, finding 
none of those, should by a common consent desire some of their 
own number to minister to them in holy things, and should upon 
that beginning grow up to a regulated constitution, though we 
are very sure that this is quite out of all rule, and could not be 
done without a very great sin, unless the necessity were great 
and apparent, yet if the necessity is real and not feigned, this is 
not condemned or annulled by the Article , for when this grows 
to a constitution, and when it was begun by the consent of a 
body who are supposed to have an authority in such an extraor- 
dinary case, whatever some hotter spirits have thought of this 
since that time, yet we are very sure that not only those who 
penned the Articles, but the body of this Church for above half 
an age after, did, notwithstanding these irregularities, acknowl- 
edge the foreign Churches so constituted to be true Churches 
as to all the essentials of a Church. 

The Church of England itself was born of necessity. 
The irregularities in the organization of the foreign 
Churches which Anglicanism now affects to deplore 
were as notorious in the founding of the Episcopal 
Church of England as in any of the Reformed 
Churches of Europe. Matthew Parker was said to 
have been elected archbishop by the chapter of 
Canterbury as the canons direct. Passing over 
the fact that such election was illegal, since, ac- 
cording to a law of Edward VI (1 Edward, VI, 
c. 2), which law was not repealed at the time 
Parker is said to have been elected, the election 
itself could hardly be considered free. The chapter 
numbered twelve prebendaries. There was one 



THE AUTHORITY OF WESLEY. 1 97 

vacancy, and out of the remaining eleven only four 
were present, and the vote was left to the dean. 
Again, since the consecrators of Parker, such as 
Barlow, Hodgkins, and Scory, were bishops of no 
place, and had no jurisdiction over any place until 
they were confirmed by Parker, whom they first 
consecrated, how could they confer jurisdiction on 
Matthew Parker ? Here is the second important, 
and as unfortunate as it is important, irregularity 
at the very beginning of the Anglican hierarchy. 

We are well apprised of the defense made in this 
behalf, especially by the Rev. Mr. Bailey, which is 
summed up in a note to Dr. Pusey's Eirenicon. The 
gist of that note is that "the metropolitical see in 
each country has inherent jurisdiction according to 
the ancient canons. Parker was left in undisputed 
succession of the see of Canterbury, and his succes- 
sors have the jurisdiction inherent in that see." 
Without placing much emphasis on the fiction of 
jurisdiction residing in an impersonal, impalpable, 
supposed entity, we may affirm our acquiescence in 
the correctness of the principle quoted. But the 
principle is one thing, the application of it is quite 
another. By what right does Dr. Pusey or any other 
Anglican apply that principle to the Protestant 
Church of England ? The principle cannot apply, 
for there was a complete change of religion, of 
Church, of ministry, and it is sheer nonsense to go 
on talking about principles of the early Church as 



I98 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

if they had any relation to the Church of the Refor- 
mation. Then, while the succession in the see of 
Canterbury was not disputed, it is well known that 
dispute of it was of no avail. The religious revolu- 
tion swept away the past and all things became 
new. But if the Reformers at the beginning of the 
English Church had the right, as they certainly had, 
to assume jurisdiction in England by the aid of force 
granted by the civil power and by driving out the 
Roman bishops from their sees, by what right can 
Anglicans assume that the thousands of Methodists 
in North America had no inherent right to self- 
government, no jurisdiction over the things spiritual 
among themselves? If a small minority of English- 
men had the right to repudiate the Roman Church 
and to assume control of their own religious matters, 
by what law is the same right denied to fifteen thou- 
sand Christians in America to govern themselves, fol- 
lowing the Scripture and the primitive Church, when 
they are left without any Church to care for them or 
to provide in any way for their future needs ? What- 
ever defense is made for the assumption of jurisdic- 
tion by the first bishops of the English Church, that 
same defense holds good in every particular for the 
Rev. John Wesley, who expressly declared (and he is 
sustained by the facts of history) that he violated no 
order nor invaded any man's right in sending labor- 
ers into the New World on the collapse of the 
English Church and the extinction of all spiritual 



THE AUTHORITY OF WESLEY. 1 99 

jurisdiction by that Church in the American col- 
onies. 

Further, that the Anglican episcopacy rests on 
the doctrine of necessity is clearly seen in the ex- 
traordinary wording of the famous Supplying Clause, 
which definitely supplies by royal authority alone 
any defect in the powers of Parker's consecrators 
— anything in condition, state, or power " which, 
either by the statutes of this realm or by the eccle- 
siastical laws, are required or are necessary on this 
behalf, the state of the times and the exigency of 
affairs rendering it necessary." Necessity, then, is 
the avowed basis of the English episcopacy. But 
that was the precise plea of Wesley in justification 
of his ordaining ministers for the thousands in 
America. What defense, then, can be sustained in 
behalf of the Anglican episcopacy that is not his- 
torically and morally valid in defense of Methodist 
episcopacy? 

Hooker, whose fame in the ecclesiastical annals 
of England is yet undimmed by the mists of time, 
laid down the principle of necessity in his celebrated 
work on Church polity i thus: 

As the ordinary course is ordinarily in all things to be ob- 
served, so it may be, in some cases, not unnecessary that we de- 
cline from the ordinary ways. Men may be extraordinarily, yet 
allowably, two ways admitted into spiritual functions in the 
Church. One is when God himself doth raise up any whose 
labor he useth, without requiring that men should authorize 

1 Book vii, chap. xiv. 



200 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

them ; but then he doth ratify their calling by manifest signs and 
tokens himself from heaven. . . . Another extraordinary kind 
of vocation is when the exigency of necessity doth constrain to 
leave the usual ways of the Chimh, . . . when the Church 
must needs have some ordained, and neitht-r hath nor can have 
possibly a bishop to ordain; in case of such necessity the ordi- 
nary institution of God hath given oftentimes, and may give, 
place. 

The same principle was held by Saravia, the 

friend of Hooker; 1 also by Archdeacon Francis 

Mason, who, in his Vindication of Anglican Orders, 

defends the validity of the foreign Reformed 

Churches on the ground of necessity. Whitgift, 

Hoadley, Sutcliffe, Ussher, all the old defenders of 

the Anglican Church, held the same principle. 

Field, whom all Anglicans revere, says (and the 

utmost weight must be given to his deliberate 

judgment) : 

And who knoweth not that all presbyters in case of necessity 
may absolve and reconcile penitents, a thing in ordinary course 
appropriated unto bishops ? And why not, by the same reason, 
ordain presbyters and deacons in cases of like necessity ? . . . 
There is no reason to be given but that, in case of necessity, 
wherein all bishops were extinguished by death or, being fallen 
into heresy, should refuse to ordain any to serve God in his true 
worship, but that presbyters, as they may do all other acts, 
whatsoever special challenge bishops in ordinary course may 
make upon them, might do this also. Who, then, dare condemn 
these worthy ministers of God that were ordained by presbyters, 
in sundry Churches of the world, at such times as bishops, in 
those parts where they lived, opposed themselves against the 
truth of God and persecuted such as professed it ? Surely the 
best learned in the Church of Rome in former times did not 

1 Defetts. Tract, de Div. Min., c. ii. 



THE AUTHORITY OF WESLEY. 201 

pronounce all ordinations of this nature to be void. For not 
only Armachanus, but, as it appeareth by Alexander of Hales, 
many learned men in his time and before were of opinion that 
in some cases presbyters may give orders, . . . though to do 
so, not being urged by extreme necessity, cannot be excused 
from over-great boldness and presumption. 

Thus we see the plea cf necessity is a valid plea. 
On that ground the founders and defenders of the 
English Church vindicated the organization of 
that Church and the orders of its ministry, as they 
also did the Reformed Churches on the Continent. 

From what has been set forth to the effect that ac- 
cording to Scripture, the supreme authority, bishops 
and presbyters are of the same order and that 
presbyters have therefore inherent right to ordain ; 
that in the primitive Church presbyters did exer- 
cise that right ; and further, in cases of necessity, 
in order that the truth of God may not perish 
among any Christian people and that they may not 
be deprived of the consolations of religion, the ad- 
ministration of the holy sacraments — from all this 
testimony, we say, produced in the establishment 
of these several propositions, it cannot be denied 
that the Rev. John Wesley had full and sufficient 
authority for the ordination of Dr. Coke and the 
sending of other ordained ministers to the reli- 
giously destitute thousands of North America. 
If this argument fails in the case of John Wesley 
there is not a Protestant Church in Europe or 
America that can vindicate its existence. Scripture, 



202 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

history, reason, and the Christian consciousness all 
combine in approval of the act. The only dis- 
cordant note among all the harmonious voices is 
that of the Anglican Church, which was itself the 
creature of necessity. 

The reader who may desire to pursue the subject 
further, that is, to find other precedents for the 
action of Mr. Wesley, may consult histories of the 
Reformed Churches of Denmark and of Sweden, in 
which Churches the bishops were called superin- 
tendents, as Wesley named Coke. The following 
works, in addition to the well-known monographs, 
will be of service : Gerdesius, Int/oductio in Histor. 
Evangel. Rcnovat, torn, iii, page in ; Desroches, 
Histoire de Dannemark, torn, v, page 132 ; Professor 
Mallet, Histoire de Da?inemark, torn, vi, pages 367, 
368 ; Moreri, Dictionnaire Historique, torn, ii, page 
361. On Sweden consult Messenius, Schondia Illus- 
trata, torn, v, page 54. 



DOCTRINE OF NECESSITY. 203 



CHAPTER XI. 
Doctrine of Necessity — Power of the Church* 

IN the preceding chapter we have seen that a plea 
of genuine necessity must be in the nature of 
things a valid plea in justification of ordination by a 
presbyter, or even for the reinstitution of a ministry 
de novo. From that conclusion there can be no de- 
fensible dissent. The Church of God must have 
within itself the power of self-perpetuation. We 
cannot conceive a possible ground for guilt, if the 
ministry in any country were cut off by the sword 
and the surviving membership of the persecuted and 
desolated Church should call godly men from among 
themselves and solemnly dedicate them to the office 
of the ministry, in order that the truth of God should 
not perish among them. So, also, if a company of 
Christians were shipwrecked and thrown upon an 
island in remote latitudes, their duty would be to 
select qualified men and appoint them as pastors. 
Wherever Christ is, there is the Church. If the 
risen Lord is with his people — and he assuredly is — 
then in exceptional providences they have the right, 
with a single eye to his glory, to do that which in 
their godly judgment is the best for the preservation 



204 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

of the truth. They are not to know the future be- 
fore they act, for that belongs alone to God. Their 
duty is to do that which is demanded by the neces- 
sities brought about by the extraordinary provi- 
dences which have hemmed them in. 

But it is not sufficient that the principle of neces- 
sity be established. A principle may be correct ; 
the application of it to any particular instance may 
be illogical and false. We are not at liberty, there- 
fore, to avail ourselves of any benefit obtainable from 
this concession without clearly proving that the case 
to which the principle is to be applied is truly an 
instance of real necessity. 

The questions before us, then, are: Was there a 
real necessity in the case of the Methodists in North 
America for the ordination of Dr. Coke ? And did 
the Methodists represented in General Conference 
at Baltimore, December, 1784, have the right to re- 
ceive the bishops and presbyters appointed through 
Mr. Wesley? 

The reality of the necessity becomes apparent at 
once when we consider the religious condition of 
the American colonies at the close of the Revolu- 
tionary War. All the Churches had suffered se- 
verely in organization, in membership, and in spirit- 
ual character. The long-continued conflict which 
had well-nigh exhausted the resources of the State 
had almost completed the destruction of ecclesias- 
tical governments. The Presbyterians were not able 



DOCTRINE OF NECESSITY. 205 

to convene a General Assembly until 1789; the 
Baptists and Congregationalists were in similar con- 
dition. But Methodism, owing to its itinerating min- 
istry, which traveled constantly through every prov- 
ince, emerged from the war with few traces of 
hardship, although it was loyai to the cause of. the 
patriots and was strongest in those provinces which 
suffered most in the war. The Methodists were 
organized and quick with contagious vitality. They 
numbered some fourscore preachers and fifteen 
thousand members. And yet they were far from 
being contented with their ecclesiastical state, if 
their anomalous position may be so designated, for 
they were a Church without a sacrament. From 
every part of the country arose complaints and 
murmurings which threatened the solidarity of the 
body. In 1779 the preachers in Virginia openly re- 
volted from the general connection. Ill-omened 
symptoms appeared elsewhere, and could not be 
suppressed. The cause of all this was not dissatis- 
faction with the character of the ministry, or with 
the almost autocratic government of the Conference, 
or with the doctrines which were then peculiar to 
Methodism, but to the lack of authority in the 
preachers to administer to the people the ordi- 
nances of religion. To the thousands scattered 
through the colonies these itinerant preachers had 
preached the word of God and won multitudes from 

a sinful life ; upon their labors Heaven bestowed 
14 



206 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

marvelous blessings ; the vitalizing power of their 
spiritual passion for humanity was quickening the 
religiously torpid life of the new era ; but to no soul 
brought by them to a personal knowledge of Jesus 
Christ could they administer the sacrament of bap- 
tism or break the bread in the holy communion. 
They were preachers, not ministers. Notwithstand- 
ing the earnest appeals of Mr. Wesley, the bishops 
in England had persistently refused to ordain even 
one minister for this service, and out of deference to 
the will of Wesley and a decent regard for immemo- 
rial usage these preachers refrained from exercising 
the office of consecrated ministers. 

From the Churches about them no help could be 
obtained — even if that were of any value in the 
judgment of Anglicans — owing to doctrinal differ- 
ences. The Methodists were Arminians; the Pres- 
byterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists were Cal- 
vinists. In the opinion of these and other de- 
nominations Methodism was rank heresy, fed by 
unrestrained enthusiasm, and productive in its 
logical outcome only of fanatical disorder and wide- 
spread ruin. To the Arminian Calvinism was a 
monstrous caricature of the benevolence and jus- 
tice of God, repugnant to Holy Scripture rightly 
interpreted, and at war with human reason. Be- 
tween opposing beliefs so strongly emphasized there 
could be but little sympathy. From neither Pres- 
byterians nor Congregationalists could Methodist 



DOCTRINE OF NECESSITY. 207 

families obtain baptism for their children, unless 
one of the parents professed their doctrines. The 
Baptists were more exclusive. Immersion was the 
one absolute condition for receiving the com- 
munion, and baptism to children was as absolutely 
forbidden. The Church of England was utterly 
disorganized and unable to minister to those of 
her own communion. Many of the clergy had 
espoused the cause of the Tories against the 
American patriots and had fled the country. 
Everywhere the Church was involved in the defeat 
of the English, and vacant charges in every colony — 
there being no less than seventy in four provinces — 
testified to her helpless and forlorn state. At the 
beginning of the war the Episcopal Church in Vir- 
ginia had ninety-five parishes and ninety-one minis- 
ters. At the close of the conflict she had only 
seventy-two parishes, thirty-four of which had no 
pastors; and out of the ninety-one ministers only 
twenty-eight remained. Among the churches hav- 
ing pastors there was no more unity than there is 
between particles of sand in a sand heap. The 
future was dark, and the probability that a new 
Episcopal organization would ever rise on the ruins 
of the old was as uncertain as the possibility of 
obtaining Episcopal ordination was doubtful. Sub- 
sequent events show how well grounded were these 
doubts. Dr. Seabury, who went to England to obtain 
the succession, was refused by the Anglican bishops, 



203 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

and was compelled to seek ordination from non- 
juring bishops in Scotland. Afterward, when an- 
other effort was made, a special act of Parliament 
was required before the legal authority could be 
granted for the consecration. No one can read 
Bishop White's Memoirs of the Protestant Episcopal 
Clair ch, or his pamphlet, The Case of the Episcopal 
Churches in the United States Co?isidercd, and not 
be impressed with the almost hopeless condition of 
the Episcopal Church, on account of the changes 
involved in the success of the Revolution and the 
loose opinions concerning episcopacy in the body 
itself. •' From the operation of these causes," says 
Wilson, in his memoir of Bishop White, u the Epis- 
copal Church, at the close of the Revolution, was 
reduced to a very low condition, and almost in 
danger of extinction, most of the clergy having 
died or removed from the country or retired from 
active duty, and none ordained to supply their 
place, and her congregations in most places broken 
up or dispersed. The danger of this evil may be 
estimated by the fact, formerly mentioned, that in 
Pennsylvania Dr. White was for some time the 
only clergyman ; and in other States, even those 
in which the clergy had been most numerous, very 
few remained. In addition to all these embarrass- 
ments it was known that differences of opinion on 
some important points existed in the Church itself, 
particularly between the clergy of the Eastern 



DOCTRINE OF NECESSITY. 209 

States and those of the South, which might lead to 
disunion. And the want of bishops and the very- 
inadequate supply of clergy prevented any vigorous 
and systematic exertion for her improvement." 
Under such circumstances what could the Metho- 
dists do other than they did ? An ordained min- 
istry they were compelled to have : the necessity 
was imperative, and Wesley, by the force of provi- 
dential events, was under necessity to assist these 
poor sheep in the wilderness. They did not make 
the circumstances of the situation ; they did not 
create the events which led to the overthrow of the 
Anglican Church : nor did they separate them- 
selves from her communion, wilfully breaking 
through every law and custom in a fanatical, head- 
strong spirit, actuated by schismatical and lawless 
desires to set up for themselves an independent 
organization. Those who attribute such conduct 
and such motives to the Methodists of that forma- 
tive period know little either of their spirit or of 
their early history. 

Among the first rules agreed upon by the preach- 
ers, and published in 1773, were these : 

" 1. Every preacher who acts in connection with 
Mr. Wesley and the brethren who labor in America 
is strictly to avoid administering the ordinances of 
baptism and the Lord's Supper. 

" 2. All the people among whom we labor to be 
earnestly exhorted to attend the Church [that is, 



2IO THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

Church of England] and receive the ordinances there ; 
but in a particular manner to press the people in 
Maryland and Virginia to the observance of this 
minute." 

At the Conference held April 28, 1779, a resolu- 
tion in the form of question and answer was adopted 
that they would continue to maintain connection 
with the Church of England : 

" Question. Shall we guard against a separation 
from the Church, directly or indirectly? 

"Answer. By all means." 

Again, in 1780, the following year, among the 
questions propounded in Conference at Baltimore, 
April 24, and printed in the Minutes of that year, 
were these : 

" Quest. 12. Shall we continue in close connec- 
tion with the Church and press our people to a 
closer communion with her? 

" Ans. Yes. 

" Quest. 13. Will this Conference grant the privi- 
lege to all the friendly clergy of the Church of En- 
gland, at the request or desire of the people, to 
preach or administer the ordinances in our preaching 
houses or chapels ? 

ll Ans. Yes." 

In Virginia, where the Episcopal clergy had lax 
opinions concerning episcopacy, as Dr. Wilson ob- 
serves above, some of the Methodist preachers, tired 
of waiting for ordained ministers to administer the 



DOCTRINE OF NECESSITY. 211 

sacraments, assumed, contrary to the consensus of 
Methodism, that prerogative and began to admin- 
ister the ordinances. But so opposed was this as- 
sumption of the ministerial office to the traditions 
and beliefs of the majority that, rather than recog- 
nize the validity of the act, they would sever all con- 
nection with them. The time for such a departure 
had not yet come. Necessity there was, but such a 
necessity as might be longer endured. They were 
not willing to consider even a pressing need as a 
compelling necessity. Consequently at this same 
Conference in Baltimore, in which they affirmed 
their desire to remain in close connection with the 
Church, these questions were put : 

" Quest. 20. Does this whole Conference disap- 
prove the step our brethren have taken in Virginia ? 

" Ans. Yes. 

" Quest. 21. Do we look upon them no longer as 
Methodists in connection with Mr. Wesley and us 
till they come back ? 

"Ans. Yes." 

Thus it is made manifest that in yielding to the 
necessity of their situation the Methodists were in, 
no wise inspired with schismatical notions. But 
what other course was open to them ? They now 
numbered fifteen thousand members ; an itinerating 
ministry which traveled to the remotest picket line 
on the frontier kept them intact, vigorous, and ag- 
gressive ; upon them the grace of God had been 



212 * THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

shed in abundance, and everywhere by their evan- 
gelical teachings and holy lives they were leavening 
society. By a combination of events the Episcopal 
Church, to which they had been attached, was swept 
from its foundations. They maintained their or- 
ganization. But were they now to disband and 
break into isolated fragments because the Bishop of 
London refused to ordain a clergyman ? To con- 
tinue as they were, a Church without a ministry, 
was not possible. In 1789 the framers of the 
Prayer Book of the Protestant Episcopal Church 
recognized in the Preface of that book the free state 
in which all the Churches were left by the result of 
the Revolution : 

4< When in the course of divine Providence these 
American States became independent with respect 
to civil government their ecclesiastical independ- 
ence was necessarily included, and the different re- 
ligious denominations of Christians in these States 
were left at full and equal liberty to model and 
organize their respective Churches and forms of wor- 
ship and discipline in such manner as they might 
judge most convenient for their future prosperity, 
consistently with the Constitution and laws of their 
country." 

The Methodists were therefore as free as any. 
Because they were free, and were not at liberty 
to disregard the providential leadings in their 
history, they did not choose to become as chaff be- 



DOCTRINE OF NECESSITY. 213 

fore the wind. They had the divine right to exist. 
But they could not exist without an ordained minis- 
try. That they must have. The necessity was 
upon them. They had a right to a ministry. The 
hierarchy in England refused to heed the appeals 
for such a ministry. Wesley as a presbyter had the 
power to ordain ; he, under God, was the leader of 
the great awakening ; him the people and preachers 
called ; and he, having long refused, yielded to the 
absolute necessity of the case. He recognized that 
they were between the mountains and the sea and 
that they must cross over or perish. 

It is true that in exercising his New Testament 
right he violated ecclesiastical canons. But not to 
violate Church canons when they stand in the way of 
the very purpose for which the Church was organ- 
ized is to be guilty of a greater wrong than the viola- 
tion of all the canons that have ever been enacted. 
It is to destroy the Church itself by destroying the 
reason for its existence, the salvation of men. Had 
Wesley refused to ordain a ministry for the Metho- 
dists in their necessity — and nothing could have 
been added that would have made their case more 
necessitous — he would have been responsible for 
all the evils that would have followed. Nothing could 
have justified him at the bar of history. Wisdom, 
however, is justified of her children, and the history of 
Episcopal Methodism is the justification of Wesley. 

The authority of the Methodists assembled at 



214 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

Baltimore to call and to receive the ministers ap- 
pointed by Mr. Wesley is involved in the question 
of necessity. But we may consider this question, in 
briefest manner, as one separate and distinct. 

As a body of Christians they had, under the 
peculiar circumstances of their condition, a divine 
right to appoint suitable persons from among them- 
selves to the office and work of the Christian minis- 
try or to accept ministers ordained by Mr. Wesley. 
Illustrations of this principle may be given in abun- 
dance from the history of the Churches of the Refor- 
mation. We see it advocated by eminent author- 
ities in the Church of England, and the reader of 
the preceding pages will recall the teachings of Bur- 
net, Field, Saravia, and Hooker. By those who re- 
gard all authority in the Church as coming to it from 
without, that is, from a ministry constituting an 
essentially distinct body from and independent of 
the Church, this principle will be of necessity de- 
nied ; but it cannot be rejected by those who con- 
ceive the Church as deriving authority, not only by 
external means, by grants and privileges traceable 
to apostolic acts and precedents, but also by virtue 
of the divine life within. 

The Church of God, according to the ideal pre- 
sented to us in the New Testament, is not an ag- 
glomeration of individuals, a coterie, a club, society, 
or propaganda controlled by purely human ideas, 
having for its main object ethical culture, social 



DOCTRINE OF NECESSITY. 2 15 

improvement, the advancement, in a word, of what 
is called civilization, however praiseworthy such 
objects might be. It is not organized politics. It 
is organized religion. It is not a lifeless, soulless 
mass operative only as it is moved upon by external 
forces. It is a living organism animated by the 
Spirit of the living God, who works in it and through 
it for the realization of the divine purpose in human 
history. It is not a lawless aggregation of atoms 
incapable of unity of action for a given end. It is 
the ideal solidarity. This is the apostolic idea in 
1 Cor. xii, where the local Church is compared to 
the human body, composed of many members, each 
having its own function relative to the purpose of 
the whole organism, but animated by the one con- 
scious, purposeful spirit within. The mission of the 
Church is the spiritual regeneration of humanity. 
This is its sole reason in history — the bringing by 
the force of divine truth of all world powers, whether 
moral or social, political or intellectual, into right 
relations with God as he has revealed himself in 
Jesus Christ, the climax of God's revealing power. 
To this end the Holy Ghost, the interpreter of 
Jesus Christ, dwells in the Church. He dwells there 
because he dwells in the heart of every true mem- 
ber of the Church. The Spirit touches human 
spirit and by contact with it imparts to it his own 
divine quality of life, thus making it holy. To the 
degree that the individual membership is sanctified 



2l6 THE HISTORIC EITSCOPATE. 

by the Spirit and is led by him and by personal 
abandonment of self into the light of the written 
word, that safeguard against fanaticism, to that de- 
gree is the Church the organized force through 
which the Holy Ghost quickens humanity and im- 
parts to it the life of God. 

Further, in a living body there must inhere the 
power of adjustment to changing environments. 
An organism which is not adaptable to varying con- 
ditions is limited to one place, to one sort of condi- 
tions which do not change ; for, if there is any change, 
the unchangeable, unadjustable organism is immedi- 
ately thrown out of relation to its environments, and 
it dies. There is lack of correspondence between in- 
ternal and external conditions. Therefore in order 
to accomplish its mission the Church also, whether 
we consider it universally or locally, must be able to 
adjust itself to the ever-changing conditions and 
necessities of each succeeding age. Whatever will 
enable it to achieve the end of its existence, the 
purpose for which it was organized, it is its divine 
right and its paramount duty to perform. Of all 
this the Church has been conscious from the begin- 
ning. It knows that it is animated by a divine life ; it 
knows that there is in it a guiding power not wholly 
its own, and that only apostasy from the truth in 
thought or life will deprive it of the Spirit promised 
and given by the Lord Jesus. In the strength of this 
consciousness it teaches that if the majority of the 



DOCTRINE OF NECESSITY. 2\J 

Church should fall from the faith the Church would 
still be perfect in the minority, as Israel fell and yet 
a remnant was preserved. 

At the formal organization of the Church at 
Pentecost there was given it all needful powers for 
the successful prosecution of its mission to the end 
of time. " Now there are diversities of gifts," says 

the apostle, in I Cor. xii, "but the same Spirit And 

there are diversities of operations, but it is the same 
God which worketh all in all. But the manifesta- 
tion of the Spirit is given to every man to profit 
withal. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of 
wisdom ; to another the word of knowledge by the 
same Spirit ; to another faith by the same Spirit ; to 
another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit ; 
to another the working of miracles ; to another 
prophecy ; to another discerning of spirits ; to 
another divers kinds of tongues ; to another the 
interpretation of tongues : but all these worketh that 
one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man 
severally as he will." But, in addition to these 
powers which the ascended Lord sent down to his 
Church, we find another order of gifts somewhat 
different in their nature: "And God hath set some 
in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, 
thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of 
healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues." 
And in Eph. iv he writes, " And he gave some, 
apostles ; and some, prophets ; and some, evangel- 



2l8 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

ists ; and some, pastors and teachers ; for the per- 
fecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, 
for the edifying of the body of Christ." 

Here, then, we see the Church endowed with cer- 
tain gifts or powers, some temporary, some perpetual. 
These endowments belong solely to no age or par- 
ticular local Church ; but, as the promise of Christ to 
be with his disciples was not for them only, but also 
for all who should truly succeed them in the same 
ministry, so these powers, which are for the per- 
petuation of the Church, were not confined to the 
Churches in Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, Ephesus, 
or Thessalonica, but come down to all Churches 
that succeed them in the same faith to the end of 
time, whether the national Church of England, or 
Presbyterian, or Baptist, or Methodist. Doctrine, 
and not name, is the apostolic touchstone of gen- 
uine succession. 

The source of authority, then, is the Church. It did 
not, it is true, originate the ministry, nor did the min- 
istry originate itself. But at no time was that a 
lawful ministry which was in opposition to the voice 
of the Church. Out of itself, quickened by the Holy 
Spirit, it calls those who are quickened, because be- 
longing to it vitally, to minister in the things of the 
Spirit. This is the outward call which corresponds 
to the inward call, and without that outward call no 
one has a right to the Christian ministry. This call 
the Methodists, who were as truly a Christian people 



DOCTRINE OF NECESSITY. 219 

organized for the work of redemption as was the 
Church of England, gave to John Wesley, and he, 
recognizing under the providential circumstances the 
voice of God in the voice of the Church, obeyed the 
summons. They had the right to call him. Every 
argument against their right under the circumstances 
is an argument against the origin of every Church 
of the Reformation. Always, in all ages of the 
Church until Rome usurped the power, the people 
had the right, and exercised the right, to call minis- 
ters. " All power and grace," says Firmilian in his 
epistle to Cyprian (see Ante-Nicene Library, Amer- 
ican edition, p. 392), " are established in the Church, 
where the elders preside, who possess the power both 
of baptizing and of imposition of hands and of or- 
daining/' " The bishop shall be chosen," writes 
Cyprian {ibid., p. 371), " in the presence of the people 
who have most fully known the life of each one as 
respects his habitual conduct. And this also we see 
was done by you in the ordination of our colleague 
Sabinus, so that by the suffrage of the whole broth- 
erhood, and by the sentence of the bishops who had 
assembled in their presence and who had written 
letters to you concerning him, the episcopate was 
conferred upon him/' Augustine constantly affirms 
that the power of the keys resides in the Church, 
the key of ordination and the key of jurisdiction. 
All ancient authorities agree to the same. A writer 
in the British Quarterly Review (January, 1877), in a 



220 THE HISTORIC EPISCOPATE. 

learned article on " Priesthood in the Light of the 
New Testament," quotes an important statement 
from an eminent authority in harmony with the view 
here presented. " Tostatus, Bishop of Avila," he 
notes, "in his great commentary, says: 'For the 
power of a prelate does not take its origin from it- 
self, but from the Church, by means of the election 
it makes of him. The Church that chose him gives 
him that jurisdiction; but as for the Church, it re- 
ceives it from nobody after its having once received 
it from Jesus Christ. The Church has the keys 
originally and virtually, and whenever she gives 
them to a prelate she does not give them to him 
after the manner that she has them, to wit, origin- 
ally and virtually, but she gives them to him only 
as to use.' " 

To sum up the foregoing : We see that the 
Methodists of the American colonies were hemmed 
in by necessity; that it was a real necessity; that, it 
being a real necessity, there was no law invalidating 
the ordination of Dr. Coke by the Rev. John Wes- 
ley, who, as a presbyter in the Church, had an in- 
herent right to ordain. We see that a body of 
Christians, because they are such, have the right to 
a ministry, and that if this right is denied them by 
the ordinary channels for the transmission of author- 
ity they have the God-given right among themselves 
to exercise that authority. This was the right in- 
sisted upon by the founders of the Anglican Church. 



DOCTRINE OF NECESSITY. 221 

Jewel, it will be remembered, in writing against the 
Romanist Harding, affirmed the same doctrine 
which we have laid down : " If none of those minis- 
ters, nor of us, were alive, yet the Church of Eng- 
land would not flee to Louvain for Roman orders, 
for the Church would have power to institute its own 
orders, as Tertullian saith, ' And we, being laymen, 
are we not priests ? ' " 

Thus do we complete the argument for the scrip- 
tural and historical validity of Methodist orders. 
They, it will be seen, rest on the same foundation as 
do the orders of the Church of England or its off- 
shoot, the Protestant Episcopal Church, and every 
argument in defense of the episcopate in those 
Churches is equally valid in defense of the historic 

episcopate in Episcopal Methodism. 
15 



INDEX. 



Act of royal supremacy, 26, 29, 33. 

Anglican arguments against Methodist 
orders, 131, 132. 

Anglican Church, relation of, to other 
Churches, 14. 

Answers of English Reformers to certain 
questions, 80. 

Apostolic succession in Church of Eng- 
land impossible, 107, 112, 120, 121. 

Article, the twenty-third, Burnet's note 
on, 86. 

Articles, the early, bishops who adopted, 
84. 

Barlow, William, position of, in Parker's 

consecration, 60. 
not an ordained bishop, 63-65, 68. 
Bishops, no record of, in early English 

Church, 182. 
Bradford on succession, 92. 
Burnet on doctrine of necessity, 195, 196. 
Burnet's defense of the royal supremacy, 

28. 

Character of Wesley, 150, 151. 
Church at Alexandria, 193. 

nature of, 214, 218. 

power of, 219-221. 

source of, authority, 218. 
Clement of Rome, 17. 
Coke, Dr., ordination of, 156. 
Coke's reply to Wesley, 165. 
Consecration of Matthew Parker, 37. 

denied, 34, 42, 43. 

examination of, proof of, 38, 41, 49. 
Controversy on Church government, new 

epoch in, 95, 96. 
Conversation between Coke and Wesley, 

164. 
Cox, letter of, to Peter Martyr, 85. 
Cummins, Dr., deposition of, 115. 



Cyprian on relation of heretics to the 
Church, 113. 

Decrees of Council of Trent, 85. 
Defense of Barlow by Francis Mason, 67. 

of the royal supremacy, 28. 
Deposition of Roman bishops, 30. 
Didache, testimony of, 18. 
Doctrine of apostolic succession in 
Church of Rome, 108, 109, 119, 120. 

in Church of England, 107, 112, 120, 
121. 

of necessity, 194. 

Edward's, King, Ordinal, 71. 
Elizabeth, Queen, beliefs of, 22. 

head of the Church, 28. 
Episcopal Church, condition of, in 

American colonies, 207-209. 
Erasmus, a Greek bishop, 140. 

Field on necessity, 200. 

on ordination by presbyters, 99. 

Foreign churches recognized by Church 
of England, 105, 106. 

Francis Mason on ordination by pres- 
byters, 99. 

Fulke's description of Roman orders, 
117. 

Gieseler, historical references of, 90. 
Grindal, letter of, 89. 

Haddan's defense of supply clause, 56. 

Hallam on recognition of Reformed 
Churches, 106. 

Historic episcopate, what it involves, 
15. 16. 
basis of, in Church of England, 20. 
equally good in Episcopal Methodism, 
221. 

Historical authority to Wesley's ordina- 
tion of Dr. Coke, 189-191. 



224 



INDEX. 



Historical succession, evidence against, 

184-186. 
Hooker on necessity, 199. 
Hooker on ordination by presbyters, 98. 
Hooper repudiates succession, 93. 

Important questions, 52. 

Impossibility of succession in Church of 

England, 107, 112, 120, 121. 
Irenaeus, testimony of, 17. 

James I, state of the times of, 39. 
Jerome, testimony of, 18. 
Jewel, letter of, to Bullinger, 89. 

to Simler, 117. 
Jewel's Apology of the Church 0/ 
England, 93. 

King Edward's Ordinal, 61. 

King's, Lord, Primitive Church, 158. 

Lambert on bishops, 90. 

Lambeth conditions of Church union, 15. 

register, 36, 45, 46. 
Letters of ordination, 167. 

to American preachers, 168. 

Methodism not isolated from the past, 
136, 137- 

Necessity, doctrine of, 194. 

application of the principle of, 204. 
explained by Burnet, 195, 196. 

Order, power of, explained, 109. 
Orders, in Anglican Church, 72, 77, 78. 

Methodist, arguments against validity 
of, 130, 131. 

Methodist, basis of, 181. 
Ordination by Erasmus useless, 154. 

of Dr. Coke, 156. 

of Wesley by a Greek bishop, 139. 

Parallel between English Reformers and 
founders of Methodism, 133-135. 

Parkhurst, letter of, to Bullinger, 85. 

Peters, Samuel A., his testimony, 142, 
147, 148. 

Power of the Church, 203. 

Pusey's Eirenicon, note on, 197. 



Queen Elizabeth, beliefs of, 22. 
head of the Church of England, 28. 

Rainolde's reply to Bancroft, 97. 

Reformed Episcopal Church, organiza- 
tion of, 114. 

Relation of Methodism to Church of 
England, 209-211. 

Reply to Anglican objections, 171- 
176. 

Riddle, Christian Antiquities, note, 
18. 

Roman pontifical, 74. 

Royal commission for Parker's conse- 
cration, 90, 91. 

Rymer's collections, 47. 

Scory, Dr., episcopal character of, 

69. 
Scripture authority for Wesley's ordina- 
tion of Coke, 186-189. 
Succession conceded by Anglicans to 
Church of Rome, 108. 

doctrine of, in Church of England, 
108, 109, 119, 120. 

historical evidence against, 184-186. 

impossible, 107, 112, 120, 121. 

in Church of England, statement of, 
by Francis Mason, 122. 

not with Rome, 183. 

repudiated by reformers, 94, 96, 97, 
123, 124. 

Teaching of the English Articles, 82. 
Testimony, Peters's, analysis of, 

148. 
Toplady's, Augustus, charge against 

Wesley, 142. 
Two orders in Anglican Church, 77, 

78. 
Tyndale, views of, 81. 

Wesley's appeals, 186. 

ordination by the Greek bishop Eras- 
mus, 139. 
ordination of Dr. Coke, 169, 170. 
views of Church polity, 150. 
Whitaker on purity of bishops and pres- 
byters, 100. 
repudiates Roman orders, 118. 

Zurich Letters, 50, 51, 103. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: August 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township. PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




Mm 
jggl ^^S^^^^ §i§§i§iill£» 



LIBRARY 



CONGRESS 




KRfiBgRBfK 




§sR3Sg ^^^^^^^^^^ Mil sagBs^^a Sm 

* IB WmSmKSssSSmm HHHHHI 




^^^^^^^^^^^^M 

^^^■^^^^^^^^^H 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^h 



